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Congressional Summit: High-Tech Economy Demands Investment in Workers
Testifying before the Joint Economic Committee's National Summit on High Technology, June 16, CWA President Morton Bahr left members of Congress with a strong impression: Technology and capital can accomplish marvelous things, but only through the hands and minds of highly trained, highly skilled workers.
Over the course of three days the congressional committee explored vast possibilities for improving people's lives through the ongoing convergence of telecommunications and Internet technologies, with an eye toward helping companies thrive in a highly competitive environment.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates set the tone for the first two sessions. Bahr opened day three, along with a panel including Scott McNealy, head of Sun Microsystems; Marc Andreesen, chief technology advisor, America Online; Alfred R. Berkeley III, president of the NASDAQ stock exchange; and John W. Sidgmore, vice chairman of MCI WorldCom and chairman of UUNET.
Corporate leaders unveiled state-of-the-art high-tech devices such as cell phones and palm planners designed to put Internet access and e-mail, inexpensively, into the hands of anyone, anywhere. But they lamented a dearth of skilled workers to implement the wonders that continue to emerge from research and development.
But Bahr took a different view. "If the U.S. is to be successful in the global economy of the 21st century, we must develop an economy that encourages high-performance, high-skill workplaces."
"The challenge to us is that such workplaces require employees who receive continuous skills training, become capable of working with evolving technologies, make decisions on the floor and can work in teams."
Citing his experience as chairman of the Kellogg Foundation's National Commission for Lifelong Learning, Bahr stated its finding that, "An astounding 75 percent of the current workforce will still be in the workforce of 2010 and will need significant retraining to meet the requirements of their jobs."
Bahr invited to the summit by ranking committee member Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-Calif.), urged Congress to make permanent the tax exemption for employer-paid tuition, under Section 127 of the Internal Revenue Service code, that has encouraged companies to fund worker education programs established with CWA. Several have benefitted, such as the Alliance for Employee Growth and Development, for AT&T and Lucent Technologies employees, and the National Advisory Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning, with Bell Atlantic, GTE, SBC, U S West and the IBEW.
Responding to Bahr's outspokenness against a relaxation of immigration policy to allow more foreign workers into the United States, Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) pointed out that there are "400,000 jobs for which there are no applicants in (the IT) industry."
Bennett, however, praised CWA's leadership in lifelong, distance learning to help U.S. workers update their skills and qualify for many of those jobs. He suggested a pairing of CWA with
NASDAQ, whose Berkeley outlined efforts to implement standardized academic and skills testing via the Internet.
It was the beginning of a dialog which may further enhance CWA's training efforts. Berkeley responded, "We would welcome (Bahr's) knowledge in this area. This could be a partnership."
Over the course of three days the congressional committee explored vast possibilities for improving people's lives through the ongoing convergence of telecommunications and Internet technologies, with an eye toward helping companies thrive in a highly competitive environment.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates set the tone for the first two sessions. Bahr opened day three, along with a panel including Scott McNealy, head of Sun Microsystems; Marc Andreesen, chief technology advisor, America Online; Alfred R. Berkeley III, president of the NASDAQ stock exchange; and John W. Sidgmore, vice chairman of MCI WorldCom and chairman of UUNET.
Corporate leaders unveiled state-of-the-art high-tech devices such as cell phones and palm planners designed to put Internet access and e-mail, inexpensively, into the hands of anyone, anywhere. But they lamented a dearth of skilled workers to implement the wonders that continue to emerge from research and development.
But Bahr took a different view. "If the U.S. is to be successful in the global economy of the 21st century, we must develop an economy that encourages high-performance, high-skill workplaces."
"The challenge to us is that such workplaces require employees who receive continuous skills training, become capable of working with evolving technologies, make decisions on the floor and can work in teams."
Citing his experience as chairman of the Kellogg Foundation's National Commission for Lifelong Learning, Bahr stated its finding that, "An astounding 75 percent of the current workforce will still be in the workforce of 2010 and will need significant retraining to meet the requirements of their jobs."
Bahr invited to the summit by ranking committee member Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-Calif.), urged Congress to make permanent the tax exemption for employer-paid tuition, under Section 127 of the Internal Revenue Service code, that has encouraged companies to fund worker education programs established with CWA. Several have benefitted, such as the Alliance for Employee Growth and Development, for AT&T and Lucent Technologies employees, and the National Advisory Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning, with Bell Atlantic, GTE, SBC, U S West and the IBEW.
Responding to Bahr's outspokenness against a relaxation of immigration policy to allow more foreign workers into the United States, Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) pointed out that there are "400,000 jobs for which there are no applicants in (the IT) industry."
Bennett, however, praised CWA's leadership in lifelong, distance learning to help U.S. workers update their skills and qualify for many of those jobs. He suggested a pairing of CWA with
NASDAQ, whose Berkeley outlined efforts to implement standardized academic and skills testing via the Internet.
It was the beginning of a dialog which may further enhance CWA's training efforts. Berkeley responded, "We would welcome (Bahr's) knowledge in this area. This could be a partnership."