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Elizabeth Dole Delivers the Landon Lecture in 1990 (Special Edition) · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

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Kansas State University is home to the Landon Lecture Series, one of the nation's most prestigious and well-known lectures.
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Several times a year, global leaders share insight on the Landon Lecture Stage.
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Inaugurated in 1966 by former K-State President James A.
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McCain, the lecture series is a tribute to the late Alfred M.
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Landon, a former Kansas governor, a distinguished political leader, former presidential candidate too.
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And speakers have included current and former U.S.
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presidents, world leaders, Supreme Court justices, CEOs, and other prominent figures.
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In 1985, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who had just become the majority leader, spoke on this stage.
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And five years later, in 1990, his wife, Elizabeth Dole, the then Secretary of Labor, who had at this moment just resigned to become the new president of the American Red Cross, uh, would speak also to the Landon Lecture Series.
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This edition, our sp our special edition, two-part series, is Elizabeth Dole's Landon Lecture.
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We hope you enjoy it.
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She remains Labor Secretary until next week, and then will become President of the American Red Cross.
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Now we go to the stage and KSU President John Weefold.
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Good afternoon, and welcome to the 85th Landon Lecture on Public Issues.
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We are very privileged to have as our speaker this afternoon Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole.
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Before I introduce our speaker, let me introduce to you other members of the Platform Party.
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On my left, Dr.
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Wayne Knapsinger, Professor of Economics and President of the Faculty Senate.
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Secretary Dole was sworn in by President Bush as the 20th Secretary of Labor on January 30th, 1989.
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As a member of the cabinet, Mrs.
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Dole serves as the President's chief advisor on labor issues, as well as a key economic policy advisor.
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She guides a federal agency of nearly 19,000 employees with a budget of more than 31 billion.
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Secretary Dole is responsible for protection of the wages, health and safety and employment rights of working people, administering job training, unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation programs, promoting equal employment opportunity, collecting, analyzing, and publishing labor statistics, and strengthening free collective bargaining.
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Secretary Dole has just recently announced she will be resigning as the Secretary of Labor to become the new president of the American Red Cross.
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Prior to her appointment as Secretary of Labor, Mrs.
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Dole served as the longest Secretary of Transportation from February 1983 until October of 1987.
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Due to her strong commitment to safety, the United States enjoyed the safest years in its history in all three major transportation areas: rail, air, and highway.
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Before joining President Reagan's cabinet, Mrs.
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Dole was assistant to the president for public liaison at the White House.
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From 1973 until 1979, she served as a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
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Her public service has also included presidential appointments as Executive Director of the President's Committee on Consumer Interest and as Deputy Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs.
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Mrs.
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Dole graduated with distinction in political science from Duke University.
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She received her law degree from Harvard Law School and a master's degree in education and government from Harvard University.
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Mrs.
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Dole currently serves as honorary chairman of the Board of Overseers at Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and is a member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers and of the visiting committee of Harvard University's John F.
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Kennedy School of Government.
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She recently received the Humanitarian Award from the National Commission Against Drunk Driving.
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A native of Salisbury, North Carolina, Mrs.
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Dole was named in 1988 by the Gallup Hole as one of the world's most admired women.
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Please welcome Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for that very warm welcome.
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And Dr.
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Weefall, thank you so much for your very kind words of introduction.
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As you mentioned, I did announce just last week that I'll soon be leaving the Department of Labor to become president of the American Red Cross.
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And at the time that that announcement was made, I was asked of what my husband's reaction was.
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And I said, Well, you know, Bob has been very supportive of my decision, but he did have one reservation.
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He said that the budget negotiations have been so rough that he really believes he doesn't have any blood left to give.
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And I said, Yes, you bet.
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That's exactly what it means.
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But you know, I've just come from California, and I was asked there uh if uh the Doles ever had a difference of views on issues since the two of us are both in public policy positions.
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And uh it reminded me of a time not too long ago, about five or six years ago, when the Congress was considering whether or not to establish a consumer protection agency in the federal government.
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And I happened to think that it would be a pretty good idea because there are 26 consumer offices located all across the federal government.
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Bob said, No, no, no, Elizabeth, that's the worst thing that could happen.
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All we need is another federal bureaucracy.
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And somehow or another, Good Morning America found out that the doles had a little difference of views on this issue.
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And uh, David Hartman, who was then the host, called up and said, Would you be willing to debate this issue on our program?
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Maybe it would throw a little light on the issue before the Senate takes its vote in ten days.
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And so we talked it over and we agreed that we would do this.
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And my husband said, Now, Elizabeth, let's make this spontaneous.
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Translated that means we don't talk about it ahead of time.
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Ladies and gentlemen, this was probably the most spontaneous event in the history of television.
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They're watching.
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And it was sort of like sitting across from your spouse at the breakfast table, sort of discussing or debating, or more honestly, let's say arguing about an issue.
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Maybe some of you have had that experience.
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And I remember that uh Dave Hartman asked the one and only question for 12 long minutes do you think there should be a consumer protection agency in the federal government?
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And we were off and running.
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Now, halfway through this program, my husband said to me, Elizabeth, I'd really like to say something if I could get a word in here somewhere.
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He said that on national television.
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Can you believe that?
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And I said, Bob, I have not made my point yet, and I kept right on going and I ignored him.
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Well, when all this is over, as you might imagine, we got quite a bit of mail.
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There was a lady who wrote to my husband and said, Dear Senator Dole, if you want to get anywhere in politics, if you want to be re-elected, you'd better get your wife to shut her mouth.
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That's exactly what she said.
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That still hurts me to think about it.
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And then there were those who wrote me and said, You're right, he's wrong.
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How could he have such a dumb opinion?
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But the one I'll say for posterity is the man who wrote in and said, I do hope you'll soon be able to resolve your marital difficulties.
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All this by way of saying that while the dolls may have a little difference of views on an issue here or there once in a while, one thing on which we most definitely agree is our great respect and admiration for this wonderful university.
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And I'm so happy to be with you today and to have the privilege of giving this lecture.
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And I'm reminded this afternoon of the words of President Eisenhower, who once said, one of the things wrong with Washington, D.C.
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is that everyone has been away from home for far too long.
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Well, I'm delighted today to be back in my adopted home.
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And what a joy it is to participate in one of America's most respected lecture series, a series which honors a man whose life and work are constant inspirations to my husband and to me.
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Perhaps it's fitting that Alf Landon was born in 1887, the 100th birthday of our Constitution, and he died in 1987, the bicentennial year of our Constitution.
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Fitting because during his 100 years, Alf Landon stood tall like the Kansas sunflower, fighting for the values our Constitution protects, values of opportunity, democracy, freedom.
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Alf Landon was a man of remarkable common sense who held fast to his convictions.
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Long before the message became popular, Alf was warning of the dangers of too much government and excessive government spending.
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I remember that on his 90th birthday, he said credit cards are the worst things that have happened to our country.
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They encourage people to spend money they don't have.
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Now, to the students here today, let me say your parents did not ask me to say that.
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But it's a message that my husband has tried for years to explain to certain senators and congressmen.
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Seriously, I know that Bob relied on Alf's wisdom and counsel throughout his political career, and how fortunate Kansas and America are that Alf's daughter Nancy has continued the Landon legacy of devotion to public service during her 12 years in the United States Senate.
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Nancy Landon Casabomb is a person for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration, and she certainly earned a sterling reputation as a public servant of high intelligence and integrity.
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My two most recent assignments in government are that of Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Labor.
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And in one, I was charged with overseeing America's material resources, highway construction, railroads, air traffic control, shipbuilding.
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As labor secretary, I've been charged with a very different mission: overseeing America's human resources, our most precious resources.
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Resources which can only reach full potential if everybody counts.
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Everybody counts.
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This simple belief was stated more eloquently by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that we're each endowed with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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And over the years, we've come to understand this to mean that the government would work to ensure that everyone has a chance at a good education, a decent job, and a secure retirement.
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And in return, all citizens would accept a responsibility to work hard, to provide for their family, and to obey the law.
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For more than 200 years, this social contract has served as the glue that holds our society together.
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It provides the momentum which keeps America moving forward, ever forward.
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But I've seen troubling evidence that this contract is being breached.
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And for the past two years, I believed that the mission of the Department of Labor must be to improve the state of our workforce and the state of our nation by doing what we can to ensure that indeed everybody counts.
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Soon after my swearing in, I traveled across America to inner cities and small town farms and everything in between.
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I met with the shop owners and business executives, the factory workers and coal miners.
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In fact, I was down deep in a mine.
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And I met with those who live on the outskirts of hope, the dropouts, mothers on welfare with no skills and very little education, children working illegally, and migrant workers.
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And through these meetings, it became clear to me that while our remarkable economic growth brought unparalleled opportunity to most Americans, there are those who've been left behind.
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Now in 1981, the American economy and the American spirit were at their lowest levels.
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Families buying a home faced the highest interest rates since the Civil War.
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Senior citizens buying groceries were forced to make do with a 12% inflation rate.
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And young men and women seeking a job were staring at a double-digit unemployment rate.
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It was clear that economic policies had to be altered, and they were.
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As a result, 22 million new jobs were created, and the income of citizens in all five economic quintiles was increased.
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Yet as our economy moved to a new and higher level, it bypassed some with minimal education or skills.
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Most revealing, poverty is directed directly linked to education and workforce attachment.
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This is fascinating.
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Among persons who've not completed high school, 21% are at the poverty level.
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Among those with a high school degree, 9% are in poverty.
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And if a person has had at least one year of college, it drops to 3.5% who are at the poverty level.
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And those working full-time year-round, only 2% are at the poverty level.
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Now I've been around public service for 25 years, long enough to know that the Labor Department did not have all the answers and couldn't solve all our problems.
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But I believe that through the policies and programs of the Labor Department, the people's department, we could help in seeing that everybody counts.
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So I set three goals.
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I call them skills, safety, and security to guide our policies.
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Goals that would help achieve not just full employment, but fulfilling employment.
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Not make work, but real work for all Americans who are willing to work.
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First, fulfilling employment requires the education and the skills demanded by today's marketplace.
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A marketplace that becomes increasingly more global and complex day by day.
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And ladies and gentlemen, we face right now a workforce crisis because the skills levels are increasing at the same time that 500,000 of our young people are dropping out of high school every year.
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And approximately 500,000 more who graduate are considered to be functionally illiterate.
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And then if you look at our current workforce, you see that about 20% are functionally illiterate, and many have skills that are obsolete or soon will be obsolete because of the changes in technology.
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And two-thirds of those working today will still be working at the end of the century.
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So therein lies our challenge.
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This was an alternative high school.
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And Tim had no idea I was going to call on him.
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And I just walked in and visited with some of the students, and I pulled Tim aside and I said, Tim, why did you drop out of high school?
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Tell me a little bit about your situation.
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And how did you find this school?
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And as we talked, he said, I was evil when I came here.
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I was evil.
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And he said, There was one teacher who kept coming after me, and I told her, Look, I don't want to talk to you.
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I don't want anything you have to offer.
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Just leave me alone.
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And he said, She kept coming after me, kept coming after me, and finally she got through and she met my grandmother who was raising me.
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Well, that young man is now preparing to go to college.
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And then I met a young woman in Atlanta, 17 years old, Erica Carson.
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And I was so impressed with these youngsters, these miracles that are occurring all around the country, as young people whose, you know, they've been involved in most negative behavior: gangs, drugs, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, dropouts, and yet their lives have been turned around.
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They're now optimistic, they're full of hope, and they're ready either to go into the market or to go on to college.
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So it occurred to me I was about to testify before the United States Senate that I should bring some of them in to testify with me, because it's so much more compelling than for me to tell what I've seen.
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And I invited Tim and Erica and several others, and they appeared with me before the United States Senate, 17 and 18 years old.
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And it was the most powerful testimony.
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It was absolutely incredible.
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In fact, I think there was applause four or five times in that hearing room, and there were tears as well, as Erica Carson talked about her mother being incarcerated for murder, her brother on marijuana, the problems that she had had, and how she was ready now to walk into any group and hold up her head and say, I'm Erica Carson, and I'm somebody.
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And Tim Douglas talking about his experience.
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And one of the senators broke in and said, Tim, who was that teacher who kept coming after you?
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Well, she stood up behind me in the hearing room and they went wild.
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The applause was incredible because it showed what one person can do in a young life.
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So this is the kind of experience that I've had as I've traveled America, and these young people are now my extended family.
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I take them on television with me so that our business community can see what these young people can do.
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We can't give up on them.
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There's every reason to help them with the skills that they need to be uh to really lead a fulfilling life and to be citizens who can utilize their full potential for America.
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But there are too many children who face the future, not with hope, but with pessimism, as Tim and Erica once did, who believe they don't count, that their lives don't matter.
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And this attitude is bred in return an unwillingness to fulfill even the basic duties of citizenship.
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As columnist William Raspberry has written, they drop out of school or they get through school with minimal academic effort because they don't believe that academic exertion will make much difference in their lives.
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They become adolescent parents because they see no good reason for postponing or even being particularly careful with sexual activity.
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They sell drugs because the money is attractive and the risk of a police record seems small when measured against their chances of success in the legitimate world.
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Ladies and gentlemen, where these young Americans are concerned, the social contract is in tatters.
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And I take great pride in the fact that much of my work at the Labor Department has been aimed at helping turn these young lives around and putting the social contract back together for America's at-risk youth.
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I've tried to change the thrust of the Job Training Partnership Act to focus on the least skilled and the most disadvantaged, and to provide not just training for a job, but basic skills, literacy, remedial education, counseling, a total support system.
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Our mission includes helping kids understand that doing well in school means they'll do well at work.
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A lot of them don't make that connection at all between school and work, and helping schools understand that they must prepare students for the realities of today's workplace.
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And our innovations are helping this happen.
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And while government cannot heal the pain of broken families or instill values when parents fail to, we can work to create an atmosphere which lets our youth know that they do count.
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Through our Youth Opportunities Unlimited, or you grants, as we call them, we're reaching into high poverty areas and we're strengthening communities.
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We want to make youth feel that they're the center of their communities, that there is much to hope for in their future, indeed, that they are the hope of our future.
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In this mission, I've asked for the help of America's businessmen and women.
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After all, we have a shrinking labor force.
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Our workforce is growing at its slowest rate in 40 years at only 1% a year, and that slow rate of growth is expected to continue into the next century.
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Businesses will no longer have the luxury of skimming the cream off the labor market.
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America needs every one of us, every one of these kids.
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Business must do more to help provide the skills, education, and motivation to give all our young people a chance.
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I've asked America's businesses to allow 10% of their workforce the leeway to become involved in mentoring, in helping to point out the potholes on the road to life, to listen, to offer support, to let kids know that they count.
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And I intend to continue to speak out on the benefits of mentoring and my new responsibilities as president of the American Red Cross.
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In fact, uh Bill Lee, who's the chief executive officer of Duke Power Company, said, Elizabeth, I have 19,000 employees, I'll give you 1,900 mentors.
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And it's wonderful to see businesses picking up on this because one person saying, I care, can make all the difference in the world in these young lives.
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Most of them have no one, or many of them don't.
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And then there are the forgotten youth.
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Now, this is the 50% who graduate from high school and don't go on to college.
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Why are they forgotten?
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Well, many of them move from low paying job to low paying job with little chance of moving up the wage ladder.
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Businessmen and women tell me constantly they have the jobs to offer.
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But the young people coming out of high school don't have the skills.
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They don't have credentials.
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They don't have that college degree.
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And they simply can't fill the jobs that are available today.
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So I've appointed a blue ribbon commission headed by a former Secretary of Labor.
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And the people on this commission are business leaders, labor leaders, education leaders.
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And I've charged them with the task of hammering out national competency guidelines that reflect work readiness, guidelines which can be utilized for curriculum development, for promotion, and graduation.
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And you know, we're one of the few Western industrialized nations that doesn't have a formal school-to-work transition.
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And so we held the first ever conference on the school-to-work population last May.
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And we had a lot of good help from business and labor and education leaders in what kinds of demonstrations we should set up.
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Those grants have been awarded now.
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Such things as the two plus two program, where the last two years of high school are combined with two years of community college, and an employer provides a job for those four years.
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So the young person has the academic training and the technical training as well as on-the-job training during that four-year period.
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And that's that accomplishes the purpose of moving into the job market and providing that transition over the four-year period.
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Teddy Roosevelt once said that far and away, the best prize life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
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Well, from developing working definitions of what skills employers require on the job, to building new school-to-work transition programs, to expanding the principle of apprenticeship so that workers will have portable credentials to move from job to job within an industry.
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We're ensuring that all Americans can claim that prize, that they all have the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing.
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Now, as we've worked to provide Americans with the skills needed to succeed in the workforce, we also focused attention on the fact that some women and minorities who already had all the skills required were still blocked from moving up the ladder.
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And as the Department of Labor pursued the opening of doors for women and minorities, I couldn't help but think back to my own career, beginning with my days as a student at Harvard Law School.
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There were 550 members of the class of 1965, and only 24 were women.
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And I recall so well on my first day of class a male student coming up to me and asking me what I was doing there.
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And in tones that can only be described as moral outrage, he said, Don't you realize that there are men who'd give their right arm to be in this law school?
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Men who would use their legal education?
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That man is now a senior partner in a Washington law firm.
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And every so often I share that little story around town.
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I really enjoy sharing that story.
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You'd be amazed at the number of my male classmates in Washington who called up to say, please tell me I didn't say it, Elizabeth.
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Tell me I'm not the one who did that.
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And you know, I'm gonna let them worry about it a while.
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Don't you think that's a good idea?
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Let them worry about it.
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Today, over 40% of the Harvard Law School class are women.
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And indeed, the number of women professionals, lawyers and doctors, for instance, has almost doubled since 1972, and the number of women in managerial jobs has almost tripled.
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There can be little doubt, however, that a woman or a member of a minority, no matter how well schooled, what the age, how thick the portfolio or credentials, enters many business organizations with limited or no hope of reaching the top.
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The positions of power and decision making in business are still held primarily by men.
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For example, of the chief executive officers of the 500 largest companies in America, only one is black and only two are women.
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It seems that there's a ceiling, a glass ceiling, if you will, where women and minorities can see that top, but they're blocked from reaching it by invisible and impenetrable barriers.
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We're looking to see if qualified women and minorities are included in developmental programs, training programs, rotational assignments, and reward structures, all the indicators of upward mobility in corporate America.
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We're working to see that the glass ceiling meets the same fate as the Berlin Wall.
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And you can let me assure you, I practice what I preach.
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62% of my Department of Labor senior staff are women and minorities.
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And I'm proud, thank you.
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I'm proud, too, that President Bush has appointed more women to senior positions in the federal government than any other president in the history of the United States, and we'll keep moving to do even more in the future.
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Let me return now to those three goals of which I spoke.
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The first goal, providing skills.
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Our second goal has been safety, protecting our workers on the job.
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And as with skills, this also begins with our young people.
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The laws prohibiting kids working too many hours in dangerous jobs have been on the books for more than 50 years.
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There is no need to create a new child labor program to deal with a growing number of violations.
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I just told my compliance officers to enforce the law.
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So four strike forces went into the field and we got the message out that the cop is on the beat and we're gonna stay there.
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Physical safety is a concern, indeed a basic right, of all our workers.
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And from the moment I took office, I sent an unequivocal message to those who are responsible for the health and safety of workers.
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Everybody counts.
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The only acceptable compliance with safety regulations is full compliance, and our actions provide the evidence that this is more than just mere rhetoric.
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In my first days at the Department of Labor, I requested and received a 10% increase in occupational safety and health inspectors.
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That was the first request for an increase in a decade.
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And we've set our sights on tackling the highest hazard problems, like repetitive motion illnesses, which account for 48% of all work-related illnesses today, and the occupations with the highest number of injuries, such as mining and construction.
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Perhaps the one safety initiative that will save the most lives and prevent the most injuries involves automotive safety, as 37% of the workplace fatalities in America occur in motor vehicle crashes.
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The value of safety belts has been proven in the most difficult testing laboratory of all, our highways.
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Six years ago, during my service at the Transportation Department, I put into place so-called Rule 208, requiring that every new car have either an airbag or an automatic safety belt.
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Now, this rule also spawned 36 state safety belt laws, and to date it saved almost 20,000 lives.
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It totally changed the climate for automotive safety in America.
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And without this foundation, our actions at the Department of Labor would not have been possible.
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And I think when I'm asked, what do you feel the happiest about during your years in government service?
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This is what I would point to.
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Because we have saved lives and we prevented crippling, disabling injuries that occur when people are thrown through the windshield of an automobile.
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And at the Department of Labor, the new rule just proposed a few months ago, which builds on this action, will require employers to ensure that employees are wearing their safety belts if they're required to drive on the job.
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And if they have to ride a motorcycle, then they'll have to have a helmet at the job.
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By providing skills, we ensure that those who want to work count.
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By providing safety, we ensure that those who are working count.
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And by providing security, we ensure that those who've retired from work count.
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So let me focus finally on our retirees and their security.
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When I traveled to the coal fields of Southwest Virginia last fall to witness firsthand the bitter dispute between the Pittston Coal Company and the United Mine Workers of America, I saw a community in turmoil.
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I walked the picket lines, I talked to replacement workers, I spoke with miners on both sides, their widows, their families, and there were many tears as they told me of their worry that commitments had been broken, that the system was failing them.
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Why?
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Because the funds for retiree health benefits were in the red.
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Health care costs were skyrocketing, going out of sight, and the percentage of coal companies contributing to the retirement fund had dropped from 80% in 1950 to 30% today.
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Well, I decided to step in to use the good offices of the Secretary of Labor to facilitate the collective bargaining process.
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I called in the parties, Mr.
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Douglas, who's the chief executive officer of Pittston, and Rich Trumpka, the president of the United Mine Workers, and I told them I wanted to appoint a supermediator, and that also I wanted Bill Useri, former Secretary of Labor, to be that supermediator.
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They agreed, and we were able to reach a settlement after several more months when most said none was possible.
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And to address the problem of retiree health benefits, which was the overriding issue in the Pittston coal strike and a pivotal issue of the 90s, I appointed another Blue Ribbon Commission.
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And I charged them with reviewing pension and health care issues as they affect the entire coal industry.
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That commission is literally issuing its report today as I speak, and it has some very forward-looking cost containment recommendations.
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As I expected on such a complex issue, the commission debate was lively and contentious on all sides.
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And in my opinion, that's good.
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We've got to face this problem now.
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Retiree health benefits are involved in about 87% of the contracts that come up for renegotiation.
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And it's precisely because the problem is big, because it's contentious, because it's fundamental to both our workers and our businesses, that we must address it now.
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I don't want it to go the way of the budget deficit and the SNL crisis.
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The sooner we tackle it, the sooner it'll be behind us, and that's good for everyone.
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Ladies and gentlemen, as I said, the labor department does not have all the answers, nor can it address but a small portion of America's challenges.
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But each of us must start with our own corner of the world.
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Each of us in this auditorium and all across the nation must do what we can to ensure that here in America, everybody does still count.
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It's part of the deal.
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It's fundamental to the social contract.
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It's the key to our remaining free and strong.
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And so, my friends, what is the state of America's workforce this October afternoon?
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I believe it's more skilled, safer, and more secure, thanks to efforts over the last two years.
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You don't mind if I brag just a little.
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Tackling issues such as the ones I've dealt with at the Department of Labor is precisely what makes a career in public service so rewarding.
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And let me say to the students here today that wherever you go after leaving Kansas State, I sincerely hope you'll consider public service at some point in your lives, whether it be at the local, state, or federal level.
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But while you may not get rich, you'll enrich the lives of millions of your countrymen.
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Your rewards may not be material, but rather the satisfaction of service, of making a difference, a positive difference in people's lives.
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Let me leave you this afternoon by sharing one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
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Walking through the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland with Lek Voenza, we talked about the history being written by the courageous citizens of his country across Europe and around the world.
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And with a smile, Vowenza told me the definition of a communist economic enterprise.
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100 workers standing around a single shovel.
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Then he said, What Poland needs is 100 shovels.
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Since then I've thought a lot about that conversation.
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He was talking about men and women who had no role to play in their economy or their nation, their destinies decided not by individual effort, but by the government.
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In short, they just didn't count.
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That feeling of futility, as much as anything, helped bring about the remarkable springtime of democracy that soon swept Eastern Europe.
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Millions of working men and women were finally fed up with a system in which they made not a dime's worth of difference.
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It wasn't all that long ago in the sweep of history when we too were governed by absentee landlords who refused to allow us a voice in our own destiny.
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Our voice was gained and our destiny changed by a group of patriots who met in Philadelphia in 1776.
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The world has turned over many times since then, as the torch has been passed from generation to generation, but our mission remains the same.
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Our cause endures.
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My service at the Department of Labor will soon be complete.
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My goal there has been to try to make a difference, a positive difference for people.
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And if I could write the legacy for the work of the men and women of the Labor Department these past two years, it would simply be they did their best to keep the contract intact.
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They did their best to ensure that everybody counts.
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Thank you very much.
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God bless you all.
36:59
That was an excellent speech.
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I'm sure everybody here enjoyed it.
37:20
Mrs.
37:21
Dole, you've been speaking really at great length about the importance of an educated and a skilled workforce in America.
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And yet America is in the middle of an education crisis, as is obvious by our own problems with funding at Kansas State and by problems with funding across the nation, not only on a college level, but on an elementary, junior high, and high school level.
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Our government is not putting their resources into education.
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We as students do not count.
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And I'm wondering what changes.
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He wanted to provide for alternative certification and for magnet schools to provide additional assistance to historically black colleges and universities and to provide for a drug-free climate.
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There was a uh uh some millions of dollars involved in trying to set up uh a demonstration in that respect as well.
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And there were other initiatives.
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I attended the uh education summit in Williamsburg.
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In fact, I was one of six people who chaired sessions during that time.
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And what impressed me was not just the fact that this was only the third time that there had been a summit of the 50 governors and the president of the United States, the third time in the history of this country.
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And this issue, education, was so high on the priority list that uh it involved all these leaders around America.
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And of course, as you know, only about six percent of funding for education comes from the federal government now.
39:59
It is more a state and local matter.
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But the president uh wanted to bring together all these leaders to focus on innovative ideas and what can be done and how we can work smarter and work more efficiently and effectively and target the system for reforms that are important.
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And what impressed me as I started to say is that through the two days, uh a great bipartisan spirit developed.
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And I think those governors and our president went out of there determined that we're going to see a difference.
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Since that time, educational goals have been set, and a lot is happening.
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And uh, I don't have all the statistics, but I understood that educational funding had been increased in the state, but I'll have to let someone else check me on that.
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But indeed, let me say that it's not just a matter of funding, it's a matter also of looking at the innovative ways to solve problems where a system perhaps has not worked as well in the past.
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We need to try some new ideas in terms of how we're uh how we're training our young people as they come through the school system.
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We've also supported increased funding at the Head Start level because there you have young people who are starting out with a couple of strikes against them, and uh the president uh has uh supported a great increase in funding uh for the Head Start program.
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Thank you very much.
41:23
Thank you for coming.
41:24
Thank you.
41:25
Thanks so much.
41:26
Thank you.
41:29
We've been listening to an address and a question and answer session by the Secretary of the U.S.
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Department of Labor, Ms.
41:37
Elizabeth Dole.
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Ms.
41:39
Dole is Secretary of Labor yet, despite the fact that she resigned or announced her resignation a week ago, will remain in the post for at least another week, and following that will become the president of the American Red Cross.
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This was a completely full auditorium in McCain Auditorium today.
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In fact, the uh lobby area outside the auditorium was also full of students who were listening to Ms.
42:03
Dole over a public address system.
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Some eighteen hundred people inside the auditorium and uh a couple of hundred more outside in the lobby area.
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We have two more landed lectures coming up.
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The next one will be on the 12th of December.
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The uh head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Richard Trulley, and one just announced today on the 26th of April.
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Former President Jimmy Carter will deliver a landed lecture here at K-State, 10:30 that morning from Ramblage Coliseum.
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Our thanks to WIBW for the usual fine facilities they provided for our satellite feed, and to our engineering staff.
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This is Ralph Titus speaking for all of us at the K-State Radio Network, and this is the K-State Radio Network.