Madam President, something important, something unusual, something worth noting happened this week, happened yesterday in this chamber that I don’t want to let pass without a few moments of comment.
Yesterday a broad bipartisan majority of this Senate came together to pass the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. And first I’d like to congratulate Senators Murray and Isakson, Harkin and Alexander, who led so capably on this bill. Senators Murray, Democrat of Washington, and Isakson, Republican of Georgia, spent years working through the details of policy and of language and months making sure that they got this bill to a point where the Senate and the House in a bipartisan, bicameral way could adopt legislation.
What’s this about? It’s about something simple, important, and powerful – investing in America’s workers so we can compete with anyone around the world in the 21st century. This is an area that I’ve focused on a lot here in the Senate, that I believe is critical to our nation, our competitiveness, to strengthening our middle class and growing good jobs.
In manufacturing, it’s a core challenge for us to ensure that our workers have the training that employers are looking for and that our manufacturing companies are globally competitive. Manufacturing is important to America, to our future, to our middle class, to our communities and to our families because it pays well, it drives innovation, it contributes greatly to other sectors in our economy and in communities.
And that’s why just a few months ago I launched the Manufacturing Jobs for America initiative that has brought together dozens of senators. We initially pulled together Democrats from across my caucus to introduce 34 bills, some of the best and broadest ideas we could bring to the table about how to accelerate America’s recovery of employment and steady growth in manufacturing. And roughly half of these bills are bipartisan. Part of the goal of this Manufacturing Jobs for America initiative was to put good ideas out on the floor and get them in the mix as we debate things going forward.
So I just wanted to take a moment today and celebrate that the ideas of many of our partners in this campaign, ideas drawn from many of the bills that are part of this initiative, ended up being important parts of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act that was passed this week.
Let me briefly touch on the five most important – the contributed ideas that were embedded in this bill that passed.
First, the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act which was sponsored by Senators Reed and Brown. In our rapidly changing economy ensuring we can train Americans of all ages for all jobs is critical. Senator Reed’s bill takes an important step in that direction by investing in adult education, expanding access to technology and digital literacy skills, and improving the coordination of state and local programs.
Another, a bill endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers, is the America Works Act sponsored by Senators Hagan and Heller. Another challenge we face is ensuring employers can quickly recognize whether a worker has the skills they really need. So Senator Hagan’s bill helps solve this by ensuring we prioritize programs that invest in training that has portable, national and industry recognized credentials. This encourages job-training programs to match the skills of workers with the needs of local employers, training individuals for the jobs currently available in their communities right now.
A third bill that contributed importantly to this bill that was enacted here yesterday, adopted by the Senate yesterday, was the Community College to Career Fund Act sponsored by Senator Franken and Senator Begich. Senator Franken came to the floor yesterday and gave another passionate, important floor speech in support of these ideas. It’s something that as I’ve presided and as I have been with him in caucus I have heard Senator Franken speak to many times. It is about equipping workers with the skills they need by investing in partnerships between our community colleges and our employers. Senator Franken, Senator Begich, myself, and others have seen this work in our home communities. We have seen community colleges learn from manufacturers what are the actual today relevant modern manufacturing skills they need and then deliver customized training courses that make a difference in the skills, in the lives, in the college affordability and access of those who seek to join today’s manufacturing workforce.
A fourth bill, the On-The-Job Training Act cosponsored by Senators Shaheen and Cochran contributed the idea that we need to invest in on-the-job training. Because of Senator Shaheen’s leadership on this bill, it will now make new and important investments so that workers learn what they need to know in the job that needs to be filled. Rather than an academic setting and then search for a job that might match the skills they learn, on-the-job training in this bill sponsored by Shaheen and Cochran is an important contribution to modernizing America’s workplace skills.
The last, the SECTORS Act cosponsored by Senators Brown and Collins, is a provision that helps meet the fundamental challenge of connecting our schools with our businesses, by requiring state and local workforce investment boards to establish sector-based partnerships.
Madam President, with all of these bills, there is an important and common theme. In the 21st century, rapid economic change is a given. In order to compete, in order to grow our economy and grow employment, in order to be productive and to have a successful and growing workforce, we need to be able to adapt as quickly as our economy does and we need to invest in modernizing the skills of American workers.
With the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act yesterday, we have made a strong statement that in a bipartisan way, we’re willing to invest in America’s workers, for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. This is just one of many encouraging moments here in the Senate that sometimes go without note or commentary in our communities at home, but I thought it was important to bring to the floor today this range of five different bills, three of them bipartisan, all of them strong, whose ideas were part of the package adopted here on the floor yesterday and that I am confident will be adopted by the House and signed into law by our President. This Senate can, will, should continue to make bipartisan progress in investing in American manufacturing.