 to meet you. Thank you very much for the article about my magazine. I'm pleased to do it. I want you to come in and sit down here and I think some photographers are going to get some pictures of it. How are you? I'm impressed with it. Did not delete it. It wouldn't be possible. I think it was good. Thank you very much. I have crossed the main arc of moments. I was very surprised by the room welcome. Especially after your silent secretary general show. What is your appeal and appreciation of the presence of your affairs with the Soviet people? Well, I think I sensed among the people an awareness and a great appreciation of the proposals for Glasnost and Perestroika. I realized that as in any government he has some opposition within the government there. I would have to say from just what contact I was able to have that the people seem to be very much in support of this. So I hope they have their way. What is your impractical terms with our next steps possible in the development of all elections in the nearest future? In our first meeting I said to the secretary general that, and I was quoting someone else, my original words, but that in the talking of armament we don't mistrust each other because we're armed. We're armed because we mistrust each other. Therefore before we start reducing arms we should start trying to reduce the causes of the mistrust. That's why the people don't know the words. What is the second term? So I think if we continue trying to remove those, then that of course is going to depend more on deeds than words. The president has another meeting but we're ready to continue. How are you? Good to see you. Good to see you. It's my commission. Good to see you. It's Gary McTugel. Nice to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Nice to see you. Good to see you. John Gerardo from the Secretary of State. Well, Jim Taylor, the same. David Crawford, director of commission. Hi. John Pendemann, South South Corporate. Good morning. Gary Backer, University of Chicago. Good to see you. Good morning, Gloria Fortella. Nice to see you. Al Shanko, Mark Confederation Features. Nice to see you. Good to see you again. We have. Take sure it's American. I'll let you have this for me. That was good. I'm always worried that Teddy will step on you with that horse. Small talk for one of the few that have been underway because supposedly what the horse did at the last supper, anyone who wants to get in the picture, get on this side. Also say that you should always be on the right-hand side because when you look at a picture, people read left to right. So if you're in the right, is that another one of yours? That was one of my first acting lessons in Hollywood when I got there. Sometimes at a social gathering or something would be a group of picture celebrities and the camera would line them up. And everybody kind of tries to get in the middle, except one. And he was a great star and he would always maneuver clear over there to the other end of the line. And I couldn't resist and I asked him one day. I said, why? Why do you do that? You're a big star. He says, nobody reads the entire caption. Don't read beginning from left to right. Well, welcome to all of you here. I know we have some time problems. In 1983, the Secretary of Education released a landmark report on the state of American education prepared by my commission on excellence in education. And that report identified a rising tide of mediocrity that was affecting our students. And as those students joined the workforce, this mediocrity endangered our competitiveness, of course. And now you as members of the commission on workforce quality are facing the task of identifying ways to overcome these problems and assure a quality workforce. And that means achieving a well-trained and retrained workforce. And it means developing a substantive and durable action plan to prepare our workers for the demands of the future. Your advice to the Secretary of Labor is critically important to this. Our partnership will contribute to the greatest investment we can make in our nation, and that is an investment in our human capital. So I'm glad to talk with you today about your goals and the work you face. And that's enough for me, Ann. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank you for the time you're giving us. This is the first meeting. We'll be meeting in Saifian from about 1 o'clock till 4 o'clock. A couple of members were not able to be here because of schedule, but I am truly grateful. It does follow on so much with the work that we've started, I think, in recent years, not just in the administration, but this is a bipartisan effort because the problems are bipartisan. We have found skills shortages and chronic unemployment need for flexibility in the workplace. And defining the problem, it appears, has been the easy job. But not enough people have solutions. And so this commission, we hope, will spend a year developing some solutions. And we're off to a good start, not only in our meeting with you, but Business Week, dated today. It actually came out last week. It's dated September 19th. Cover story is on human capital, the Klein of American Workforce. In here, there are five members of our commission quoted. And I think that is a testimony to the fact that we've been able to bring together all good people, 20 members, five of whom Business Week thought highly of to quote and seek opinion on this problem. And so we're pleased that the timing is such that this issue will be more popularized, if you will, more and more people understanding that we as a nation have got to work to improving our workforce. And it's literacy, it's education, and it's training and retraining. There are really seven main points for the commission's charter, but we've been able to narrow them down to three. And I thought I might share them with you. One of the first missions of this commission is to talk about how we might restructure and structure both private and public job training and education, and how to retain and then relocate displaced workers. Secondly, how can we keep educators and those responsible for training and retraining informed on a regular and continuous basis of the changes in the workplace. And the fact that we had earlier this summer, we talked to you about the Building and Quality Workforce Symposium that Secretary Verity, Secretary Bennett and I ran. Al Shanker was one of the people who participated in that. It was business, government, educators, school superintendents, etc. Worked with the NAB, the National Alliance of Business, and it was all day. And I think showed that these groups working together in forming one another and participating can make great inroads into the communities for us in terms of human resource and human capital needs. Also, we want the commission financing private investments and human capital. And then also, how can job placement agencies that are at the state and local level and employer policies encourage more flexibility in the sort of efficiency that's going to be needed in the labor market in order to adjust to the changes that technology, global competitiveness, etc., are going to be bringing about. They have a ambitious schedule for a year. There's a lot of research that's already been done, but clearly more is needed. But I was struck with the fact that commission has as its Latin derivative, if you will, the meaning to and trust. And I thought that this was inappropriate when we're talking about human resources, we're talking about the people of our country who are entrusting this commission with a great deal of hope and responsibility. The report will be due to Labor Day of next year and we'll all benefit, I think, from this. I would like now to return to Dick Schubert. Dick has been kind enough to chair this and it's significant today, particularly because as president of the Red Cross and chairing this first commission meeting you can appreciate he has been very, very busy with Hurricane Gilbert. So I'm most appreciative that he's able to carry out his duties for us today. Thank you, my secretary. Mr. President, I had the privilege and responsibility to be involved in these kinds of problems in government. I was involved in the Labor Department for five years back in the 1970s and then in the steel industry for total about 16 years and now the Red Cross. And I'm absolutely satisfied that these are critical problems that we're going to be dealing with. And I think that we've got a fine commission. We have a super staff. The secretary has made this a first commitment on her part and I just want to assure you that in the metaphor of this week or so, we're going to give it our best shot. And just as that report that you referred to in your remarks on education was a gold report. It was very readable. It had very sound practical recommendations. That's our commitment. We want our document to be readable and red and we want as practical down to earth recommendations for public policy makers and for the private sectors we can. And we're going to do that, Mr. President and try to make everyone who's been involved in getting us started proud of the effort. Well, I'm most pleased to hear that and I have the greatest confidence in the world in all of you just for the simple fact that you're from the private sector. I just give you a couple of sets of figures to illustrate what the difference can be. I discovered years ago a job training program government run, managed and all that trained supposedly 5,000 workers in less than a year at a cost of $50,000 per trainee. And then the one comparison that I have is that program subsequently that we've had a job partnership with the private sector in training with 70% of the people that have jobs and it certainly didn't cost any $250 million or 5,000 employees as the other one did. And we know the great need right now with all the gaining jobs and everything. I've gotten in the habit on Sunday of counting the pages and the Help Wanted ads and the Washington Post Sundays the day when that's where they're there and how we even talk of having an unemployment problem when yesterday there were 70 full pages of Help Wanted ads here in this Washington paper and I know when I've been on a weekend in other cities I've gone out of the way to look at their paper and see the same, it's the same all over. Now that doesn't mean there is a lack of people. That has to mean that there are lack of people trained for what those employers are looking for and it's been running about for the last year or two that I didn't that's a new hobby of mine. Well we know that in our workforce 2000 report which Pat certainly was involved in and others we can offer a job we think by the year 2000 everyone who wants one if they're prepared and that's why we have from Al Shanker in education through many of the people here at Delta training programs what the role is if government and business and educators have to work together to sort of pull us out of this mess we're in you might say I'm getting the signal that I'm due someplace else I have to find that fellow that keeps telling me it's 50 minutes 50 minutes Thank you so much Thank you for what you're doing Thank you Letting out how it goes Thank you Thank you Thank you