economic solutions to help america's families i want to welcome our witnesses and all of the members of the committee in the audience to this to this hearing this is the second of in this series of hearings last week  we listened to a distinguished panel talking about the challenges facing america's middle class and we learned that that america american workers are not sharing in that share of the increased productivity that they have historically shared and well that's a trend this is deeply disturbing to to america's families because at the same time as we all know the facing the rising costs and then the subsidies of life that they need to hold their hold their families together we heard from rosemary  miller a flight attendant who told us about working longer hours spending more time away from her children because of the cut back pain benefits at work she also talked about what she'd want out of her  her work and that was livable wages and a home that she can own affordable health care and retirement security in a reasonable means to provide for our children's college costs that's really not an exorbitant demand in the in a country such as united states of america  families it's moving further and further out of out of reach and i believe that we the houses this year has taken two steps that will help out with the passing that when the house passed the increase in the minimum wage and when the house pas the direction in interest rates on subsidized subsidized loans today we want to move beyond that discussion to talking about some of the possible solutions and some of the things that can change that would help america's families when help to  narrow the current disparities and the end equalness of the american economy for america's middle class we believe that is it can be done in the panels will talk to us about creating a competitive economy that includes new and good paying jobs restoring workers rights including the rights to bargain for better wages and benefits and making health care more affordable and accessible and we think that these these are these are key components of making sure that the economy remains there remain strong that people are in a position to to have representation and to negotiate where there are for their benefits and their pay in their working conditions but we also know it's important that we create the the investment in the future in terms of the new scientist engineers and mathematicians that are going to be necessary to to to go to that to work place and to design the workplace and design the products and do the research in the in the future and we will we wanted to we want to make sure that the government continues in that partnership with government and business in creating high the ability to do high risk high reward research and make sure that we have those those public private partnerships in place and also as we've had this discussion for for a long time now health care of course has been at the center of a sense of insecurity among american families but also taking more of their of their dollars of their income  binge taking in health care as employers continue to to share the burden of health care to off lord more of those decisions and in many instances also accompanied by not only increase deductibles co payments and premiums but for less health care than they might have had had before and a major driver of the of the insecurity in the middle class that many of them are only a major health care event away from real real problems  in terms of being able to maintain our household their income and there are and there are quality of life that we look forward to this panel and with that i would like to yield to mr mckeon for any opening comments that he might have  class warfare and i am hopeful that today we can move beyond the politics of division and focus on reforms that have served to strengthen our economy and iraq we can do to strengthen it even further last week we heard some of the witnesses who testified before this panel speak with great optimism about the state of the u s economy as well as with great confidence in our workforce is capacity to meet the challenges of global competition i was particularly struck by the testimony of a california based manufacturing president who called for better alignment between education and training systems to meet the challenges faced by workers and employers seeking to adjust to the new realities of the twenty first century marketplace the primary challenges for manufacturers are how to attract retain and motivate a high performing workforce after developing a strong interest in the workforce training and retraining issues during my time on th committee i can say without a doubt that the manufacturing industry is not alone in facing these challenges in fact i believe that the single best way to find meaningful economic solutions for everyone not just a single class is by bowstring our education and training systems through streamlining programs under the workforce investment act evaluating and enhancing math and science education programs and expanding access to college and other types of p second area education i believe we've taken some important steps toward identifying long term economic solutions but we have more steps to take and as we consider how to do so i believe we should be just as aware of what is  solution as to what there's a solution for example some may embrace huge new federal mandates upon state and local governments or employers with the hope the congressional micromanagement will be a  practically any economic challenges we now face let's be clear this kind of heavy handed action out of washington is decidedly not an economic solution some may move to create more federal title of innovation is the side of the not an economic solution and as hard as it was to believe some may even argue for dismantling the cornerstone of our democracy the private ballot election as a way to somehow strength and worker rights and improve their economic standing let's speak crystal clear about this one telling the workers right to a private ballot is decidedly not an economic solution in fact it's blog an attack on democracy itself than anything else so what are some real economic solutions why cements my colleagues with their reforms that obama we worked and worked well we've cut taxes for literally every working american and the economy has grown stronger ever since we've made it easier to save perhaps your expenses college and retirement giving americans greater ownership of their personal savings we've insisted on results in our schools and that the colleges and universities be held accountable for their role in raising tuition fees and we reshape worker training programs to provide more individual choice unless hand holding out of washington chairman the solutions proven solutions provide us a more starting point a solid starting point from which we will take the next steps to continue strengthening this robust economy i look forward to taking those  you and my other committee colleagues in the weeks and months ahead thank you thank you and without objection i ask that all members will have five legislative days to say that additional material for the record should they should they desire to do so that i like introduce our panel were joined by mr richard trumka who is a secretary treasurer of the a f l cio a number out the umbrella labor organization representing fifty four now national international labor unions he was elected in hundred five and the youngest secretary treasurer in the a f l cio history as part of that campaign to reinvigorate the american labor movement has been very involved in working on on advanced employer employee  cooperation agreements to enhance productivity in the workplace by working cooperatively with with employers and covering all areas of those agreements from job security to pensions and the benefits  is judy fetter who is a professor and dean at the georgetown public policy institute and his widely published scholar to three decades of public policy research at the brookings institution continued at the urban institute and now it's  georgetown university this congress on both sides of the island called upon her time and again to come and discuss health care with us her expertise is in the in the uninsured medicare medicaid long term care and we look forward to her or her testimony our leadership over the last the last fifty years he's worked with the white house he's worked with republicans he's worked with the democrats in trying to get us all to to understand the kinds of changes that are necessary in public private partnerships and catch policy committee and seeking funding for the for education but they've also they've also put their money their or their corporate money their private money into the high in those efforts in terms of education both at the the local national level then korea is a senior economist with the rand corporation previously served as a director of rand's labor and populations division she receipts and written on a broad sheet she has researched and written on a broad range of human resources issues including social welfare policy wage an income distribution population asian family and child well being i wellbeing she was a ph d an m eight in economics from yale university and a five for five minutes of the yellow light to that suggests you might want to start wrapping up your testimony in the red light so that we'll be able to have a questions for from the from the members of the of the committee welcome thank you actually rather members of the committee my testimony focuses on one simple but central question why in the richest country in the world is the so difficult for so many families to make a living by working despite strong economic statistics for u economy overall the vast majority of americans are struggling to maintain their living standards in the face of stagnating wages rising economic insecurity eroding health care and retirement benefits and mo debt at the richest moment in our nation's history the american dream is fading for majority of american workers the key issue in our view is the growing gap between real wages and productivity growth since hundred eighty labor productivity has increased over eighty percent but the real median wage has hardly budged increasing only two percent over a quarter century the key factor contributing to this growing rift is a steadily growing imbalance of bargaining power between workers and their employers i want to focus my world remarks today on the crucial policy reforms we need in this country to rebalance the bargain power between employees and their employers the goal of economic policy should be disappointed a strong and internationally competitive national economy has benefits are shared broadly by all americans to a cheesesteak objective we must reconnect with four important economic values that resonate powerful powerfully with all americans our country's economic policy should one provide for full employment to protect the right of workers to choose to util a unionized if they want to three we form our global economic policies to prioritize good jobs and a fair just to be sure of the benefits of globalization and fourth ensure that people who work for a living earn a wage that keeps them out of poverty and have access to affordable and adequate health care and retirement first anybody who wants to work in america should have a job we need more balanced macroeconomic policies that balance to dual goals of full employment and price stability that's the fed's going should be to maximize growth and employment consistent with reasonable price stability second american workers should enjoy the fundamental freedom to associate with their fellow workers and if they wish organize unions at their workplace and bargain with their employer for dignity at work and a fair share in the values they helped create the current system for forming unions and bargaining is broken every day corporations intimidate introduced the employee free choice act to allow workers the freedom to organize free of employer harassment and fear of job loss like to thank the chairman for his leadership in gaining such strong support for that important legislation and congress to take immediate action to enact the employee free choice act in the law third we need new policies to assure competitive american economy and decent jobs at home and abroad in a rapidly globalizing world internationally this requires more balanced trade policies that protect the rights of workers as well as they protect intellectual property we need to enforce our trade laws and our train agreements much more effectively and we need to make sure that o negotiators don't agree to weaken our trade laws in order to cut more deal than lexically it requires a national economic strategy to rebuild our manufacturing capacity this is important not just because of the need for good manufacturing jobs but crucial we are to reduce our trade deficit and dependence on foreign borrowing last greek president bush called for an extension of trade promotion authority or fast track i think that's an indication he's really not hearing the american people international treaty is important and should be pursued but it is essential that we get the rules right and the future train agreement the negotiating authority must require that process and for green that fails to meet the mandatory negotiating object of congress should send the agreement that to the president so that he can negotiate one that does finally people work every day should not live in poverty they should have access to quality health care for themselves and their families and should be able to stop working at some point in their lives enjoying a dignified and secure retirement thank you monsieur make you very much  chairman miller congressman the key i'm members of the committee i appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today families businesses and governments are struggling with ever increasing health care costs forty seven million people are without health insurance protection and even people who have health insurance are seeing their benefits to rendel and health costs consume their raise wages increasingly our health insurance system fails to protect us from we are sick given these conditions it is good news that health reform proposals abound as we consider these proposals and move forward as we must it is important to remember that there are many ways to get a fairer more affordable three critical elements to effective reform that will actually guarantee off people coverage that gets them access to needed health care proposal that has these three elements adequacy affordability and availability of benefits get such a triple a rating because of the concrete ways expand coverage that work the first element there perform would define a set of benefits that protect people when they're sick that means it has to cover a full range of medical services limit cost sharing to levels that are reasonable in relation to people's incomes and kept out of pocket spending to what people can realistically afford in a certain adequacy i earned you to be aware of proposals that leave it to insurers to define what covered and the proposals with such high deductibles that they impede access to care element number two would create the subsidies that make adequate insurance affordable without  we can't expect low and modest income people to buy insurance voluntarily families with incomes below try the poverty level about forty thousand dollars for a family of four just don't have what it takes to spend a less than thousand dollar what it cost for comprehensive coverage in assessing affordability i urge you to be way out of proposals that require people to buy insurance without a subsidy a mandate without a subsidy is either punitive or pretend it either should not happen or it won't happen the third element would to show what we might call a place to buy somewhere that makes adequate affordable health insurance available to everyone without regard to health status that place could offer a choice of health plans like member of congress pass it could be a close look like medicare or if the rules were changed because the existing private insurance plan in assessing availability i urge you to be aware  that send people for shopping for insurance in a market where insurers deny coverage to people when they need care or charge more based on age health status or otherwise cherry pick us when we're healthy and avoid that's when we're sick the combination thereof and they can only sustain that protection over time if it includes the way the small health care costs grow not only for people who are now on the word but for everybody including those of us who depend on medicare and medicaid we can all be better off and more willing to commit to universal coverage if we invest in research to determine which set up now to call services work and which don't and then information and payment system that health providers deliver the former and avoid the latter as you well know debating the merits of alternative health reform proposals is a daunting task our history is filled with debates that generate far more heat than light for decades instilling fear among those of us who have health insurance even if it cost too much or covers too little here that political action will make us worse off not better off has taken health reform off the political agenda but it may be that the worst cost in coverage get the harder it will be to scare us away whether that happens will depend on whether we can trump fear with confidence that we can do better and we turned thirteen years ago need fictional characters today to tell us the system is broken and our moms and dads brothers and sisters friends and coworkers fill that role every day the time for debate and discussion was a decade ago pleasure for me to be appearing before this committee on behalf of a twenty five hundred member company and then you suggested that stands the entire spectrum of the high tech industry i'd like to just provide a little bit of context before i get into some of the details e g here for the last ten years publishes a book called cyberspace tooth well depends on the year of cyber states and we're going to be publishing the latest version another couple of months i just would would summarize we by the way been accused of being to conserve of that the numbers are are too low i took the decision ten years ago we started this publication that i'd rather be accused of being conservative than inflating the numbers  we think the numbers are good because they're also entirely from the bureau of labor statistics and it's a look at all fifty states in terms of high tech employment salaries the trends in those exports from each state et and as of now there's five point six million high tech workers we lost a million workers between two thousand and two thousand and four when the high tech bubble burst the good news is in two thousand and five for the first time we had a net gain of sixty one thousand jobs and for the first six months of two thousand and six we saw a hundred forty one thousand net new jobs being added we think that when we come out with our report in about a month and a half that we're going to be seeing over two hundred thousand net new jobs in high tech that occurred in two thousand and six but one of the things i would like to talk about is that we're here to talk about strengthening middle class jobs and middle class way of life  will and i would argue that the key to achieving that is developing a highly skilled and educated workforce education is the most reliable path to high paying middle class jobs i believe no other industry that represents the middle class dream that high tech which requires highly skilled and educated people and pays them well for it the average high tech worker earns eighty five percent more than the average private sector worker seventy two thousand four hundred dollars a year versus thirty nine thousand one hundred dollars a year in many sectors in the high tech industry the wages are even higher the average worker in software services sector makes eighty thousand six hundred dollars the average worker in semiconductor manufacturing makes eighty nine thousand four hundred dollars and many of the people who work in the semiconductor manufacturing area are not college graduates but they are still very well trained in terms of math and in terms of problem analysis these are the types of middle class jobs that this industry would like to continue to create but we're facing a number of challenges and the like you just say a few of them not enough money are can kids pursue careers in science math and engineering america used to be the place where the best and the brightest came from all over the world and particularly they came for a high tech career this is no longer true because our base a system is broken it is difficult to obtain h one b visa for a foreign national and once you have them it's even more difficult to get a green card to keep them between forty and sixty percent of all graduate degrees in science technology engineering and math go to foreign nationals we educate them and then we tell them to go home that's absurd we have what seems to be constantly missed is that for the last sixty years the best and the brightest came to the united states founded new companies created literally tens of thousands of high paying jobs high value added jobs mostly and i tech ironically we live in a culture where our kids have many more options than science and engineering careers but i would submit that it is the ones with those backgrounds of science and engineering that create the innovations that allow our kids to have all those other options i'd also like to know one other thing because it's there's e mail out to all of our seventeen local councils and said i just like to know what you'd like me to talk about what bothers you and i'd like to just make a quote of a company from dallas texas with the two employees one million dollars in sales and the c e o said quote we need to be eliminating barriers to finding and developing talented employees if you do this one thing we can figure out how to work around all the other system failures that stifle growth and the improvement of the human condition across our nation quote what i think he's really saying is if we can find a way to develop educate and and have a talented workforce we can deal with all the other crap and and i think that's basically  correct i'd like to say in my testimony by saying one final thing it is not like we don't know what to do in the hundred ninth congress we had the president's american competit house republicans national summit on competitiveness the house republican numerous bills in the senate mostly on the republican sponsorship and that's fine but my no means when i asked the house democratic innovation agenda i would note that all of these proposals address the problem we believe in a none more comprehensively than does the democratic innovation agenda it's our judgment that time has come to act in the hundred tenth congress that didn't occur in the hundred ninth congress it's interesting issue there's the largest source of income for most middle class families is earnings from work the well being of america's middle class is closely tied to the outcomes of the u s labor market so i'd like to focus my testimony on the forces that are shaping the world of work and the implications of those for the u s workforce and workplace understanding these forces is critical for shaping policies that conservative foster a strong and secure middle class well into the twenty first century my remarks today are based upon a recent study conducted at rand at the request of the u s department of labor to provide policymakers what it was a look at the possible trends of the next several decades that might affect the nation's workers employers and other stakeholders such as education and training institutions that focused on three key factors that we identified as having the most potential to affect workers and employers in the next ten to fifteen years those factors are demographics technological change and globalization and it says in the demographic trends the most striking shift in the workforce is that it's projected to grow more slowly in the future and the one nine hundred seventy s the workforce grew at about an annual rate of two point six percent per year it's been steadily declining in the next decade that rate of growth will be about point four percent per year and it falls further in the decade after that in terms of technological advances we can expect continued growth and demand for a high skilled workforce that's the result of new technologies which favor non routine skills such as flexibility creativity problem solving in complex communications complimentary changes in workplace practices also increase the demand for workers with high levels of skills the third doctors globalization which can be expected to have equally important facts and looking ahead we can anticipate the globalization were affected industries and segments of the workforce that in the past were relatively isolated from outside competition alternately globalization and technological change have both aggregate effects and distributional consequences they both generate gains in the economy as a whole from innovation and expanded markets but they are also responsible for distributional effects as new technologies in overseas competition displaced workers or alter the skill content of jobs and i  highlight a number of implications of the demographic trends technology shifts and growing global integration and my remaining time i'd like to highlight four key messages that flow from our work well i'm not going offer specific policy recommendations one clue's conclusion that does follow is the policy makers at all levels of government need to reexamine and where needed reform the institutional features of the u s labor market largely which developed to serve a twentieth century economy not the twenty first century one we're in today first response to a redefinition of employer employee relationships and work range meant for greater specialization and more work for entrepreneurs forces that are driving the reorganization of production are expected to shift toward more non arrangements whether that self employment contract work temporary help work part time work freelance work and so on one view this trend to see is the evolution in some sectors which numerous information technology enabled network con those sellers consider evade to be their primary source of income and other words that those individuals actually work for you then it would make each day the second largest employer in the country after wal mart current data indicates that about one in four workers i in some form of nonstandard work or enjoyment in other words a job that's not expected to deliver traditional workplace benefits and to the extent that these types of nonstandard work arrangements expand in the future one key issue will be asked to and delivery of traditional workplace benefits such as health insurance pension coverage and other things that employers are involved in such as supporting education and training of their workers and other aspects of professional development second the skills of the us for workforce will determine how competitive our economy remains in the global marketplace you've heard already about issues related to training scientists and engineers and on this front international comparable data indicates that the us us workforce does not stand up whether we look at in students or workers today for their international counterparts and the technological advances that are going to require an increase in a workforce that skilled in the sciences and engineering is one where we've tended to rely as was mentioned on foreign students from abroad and the number of indications to suggest that that reliance is not something we can count on in the future third of all education and training prior to the start of a career will be important the ability to retool and retainment career will be essential at all levels whether we're talking about older workers or younger workers and finally as the labor force grows more slowly in the future employers are going to have to compete for new workers particularly those that are under represented in the labor force and so examples that we discuss in our analysis are older workers whether it's going to be a demand to increase their retention in the workforce as well as under represented groups such as the disabled again it's important that policy makers consider these trends and the implications that they have for the future of our workforce and workplace and the policies can make in helping to ensure a strong and stable workforce and the middle class as well i look forward to your questions thank you thank you very much and thank you to the entire panel i like to ask a question to mr trumka mr archie and things that happens as there's less and less if you will after health care dollars to put in a person's pocket today if you negotiate wages and benefits i would have gone to wages and would have gone into you would have brought home the table money you would have brought home  is now and that benefit when i talk to small startup companies and my district that the idea of how they struggle to provide health care is the other side of that that picture i just where you might what you become such a big issue that they declare bankruptcy as a preemptive way to to settle the issue to get rid of legacy costs for retirees it simply also should be stated that that problem cannot be solved at the bargaining table because the process that's going on in the united states between employers and employees is a process where the cost has shifted from one to the other a process of shifting more and more costs on to workers right now who simply can't afford that cost because of stagnation of wages and i do employers even good employers that want to provide health care are being disadvantaged because of the costs that health care we simply need a national solution to that not a state by state solution but a national solution so the health care problem one that rings in costs one that brings health care to every american and provides a minimum level of benefits a good level of benefits for every last american the starchy obviously you're in a highly competitive industry where you're trying to attract the best of the best i was soon that health care is it's not optional it has to be there for these workers and their famil i think that's true but there's been a big change in the last five years at the time years ago most of the high tech companies provided what used to be calling a rolls royce medical plan there's lots of that  thing that is really starting to happen is the cost of health care for high tech companies is becoming a very significant part of their cost structure and the problem is they're also competing against companies in europe and in asia who don't have those guys and so i will tell you about our membership and about how seriously they think about it we had a board meeting last week and had a very lengthy discussion on the top five priorit workplace historically a huge amount of this has been delivered to employer provided health care that sounds when the important maybe the individual at this stage in this discussion that the system you describe judy in terms of accessibility i just want if you might comment on these these changes that are taking place demographically but also that are being driven by by technology most of us rely on employer sponsored insurance and as i listen to dr crowley we see growing numbers who are falling outside that system but we also know from what we're hearing is that even those who are inside are struggling the empl of serving everybody and we need something beyond it we need to make sure there is access through jobs and access to those that are in other jobs the key here i would argue is to be careful what  nd creates tax credits to go outside employment a big a problem with that approach is that it undermines employer sponsored insurance and stands people out into what i described as a market in which there is emanation again talking about one of the implications for today's workforce for future workers is that they won't expect to see the same stability and their jobs that they might have their parents might have had so the notion that you have a stable access to a house source of health insurance through an employer is no longer necessarily the case so the consequences of changing a job voluntarily or involuntarily are tied to these issues of potentially losing health insurance what do you do about the pension benefits and other things that you qualify for so that of whether or not the slot that they see if you had health care whether you run is really sort of counter to the entrepreneurial spirit if you will that you find yourself locked in a place even though you think you could take your talents and put them  maintain insurance and so one individual can go out on their own when it happens at older ages when workers are not quite ready to retire but if they are medicare eligible they risk losing health coverage it's very important as a just before they become  flatness or even a decline in wages no matter what economic school they come from that's just a fact of life and in the american african jobs system in an american economic system and we hope to be able to to work to remedy that thank you very put it in to get rid of it you know just make some changes whether it's by regulatory action or even legislative action and contrary to what i keep the p c l be came out with last month it's not going to solve the problem ok workers based on your research and experience the private sector investment in training outpace that of the public sector and how can we encourage more private investment such as public private partnerships to help assist with our increasing certainly i got a great the public sector investment is much larger than the private sector investment and then that gradually shifts over time about one of the things that we do see is that the extent that employers in that's and their workers they tend to invest in workers who are better educated because they're the workers that they're working hardest to retain and attract into their companies and in fact more and more employers i think particularly looking for high skilled highly qualified workers are going to use education and training benefits as one o the tools to attract workers whether that be through their own company provided programs or by subsidizing the cost to go outside the company to obtain education and training but i think in the future definitely the notion of public and private involvement in education and training is key the private sector knows where that the fans are the public sector often has the resources to do things like community colleges and other programs that are available so it's critical that those kinds of investments happen with the knowledge of both parties and the resources that are available so years ago i was asked by a manufacturing small manufacturing company in my district they were having trouble keeping their employees so what we do is i went to the community college in the city and got the poor of them together and the company provided the space for me to call provided the instructor  the city gave them some seed money so they were able to set up a classroom now they have to first time classrooms with full time professors and they don't care now they they they train i talked to like trying to group over the years and if you agree that we have like a three pronged problem we have an immediate problem that could be fixed by fixing the h one b visas that could take care of art our short term problem then we have an intermediate problem that if we can get more mapped and science students trained right now in college and then we have the long range where we are younger people that are going through elementary and each one are right no child left behind i think was a good start in the in the one hand and we talked a lot about illegal immigration the thing we need to do there but we need also to have reform of legal immigration and reach out to those that will help us turn people that were we lose jobs because the low wages we're also going to be losing lots of jobs because of insufficient cranes workforce in your opinion how can current public policy in these areas how are they in effect of how can they be more effective well again i think in terms of what the congress parties came up with last year there's all kinds of solutions in here and some of those i think that for oss now for other companies and this is going to change in the last year the emphasis done h one b visas i would tell you that in the last six months it's been an emphasis on the green card because the problem they've got is they've got workers who came with an h one b visa it's now up they want to get them the green cards they can stay with the company and i think one of the misperceptions about all of this is that a lot of these really highly skilled foreign workers who come  united states they're not a zero sum game in terms of american jobs they've created thousands of jobs and and the point we're trying to say is that you may have seen yesterday new york times there was an article in there something when you think about some of these other clunker countries and and the second thing is is that i'm just giving an example we've got a company that's based on the far west they opened up a plant in china about two years ago with about one hundred engineers the cia wanted to bring the engineers back to the united states in tranches of twenty each primarily to americanize them and to and to get them into it and taken answers in august and here's my last point about this at least every other week the state department issues a press release about how everything's improved i don't buy it my companies don't buy it it's  monumental problem you know we've had those discussions with california employers who are making decisions whether or not to build facilities in canada because they can't get people across the border very  thank you mr chairman mr jenner i think our first hearing conclusively established that there is truly a middle class squeeze that's affecting middle class people in the country and i think i'm hearing from today's hearing the following points about what to do about is to make our companies more effective by helping them deal with health care costs so they're paying not only for this so that we change the situation where they're paying today not only for their own employees and their dependents but for other people's employees one's career and i'm hearing from the search from can my constituents that we need to empower our workers to decide freely whether or not to collectively bargain and bargain their fair share of productivity growth and growth in the economy i want to touch with my questions on the health care and education points starting with education dr crowley if i could ask you you make a very persuasive argument that two of the three keys you identify are the skills of our workforce and the ability to retool mid career if i were to tell you that my proposal was to reduce federal investment in education by fifteen percent in the next five years how would you evaluate the wisdom of that proposal i guess i'd want to know what specifically you would take the resources away from that i would take them away from vocational education programs and perkins program and i put the more toward paid twelve well i would argue that you may even want to put more of the resource in the pre k right of the things that we're seeing when we look at the k twelve education program and in areas where it's not doing well is that many of the education gap actually present when children began school think about the notion of reducing by sixty to twenty percent what we invest in education overall when you talk about education and training yeah well i think the issue is going to be whether or not there's a substitution towards other investments i think ultimately let's assume there is a right alternately i think that investments in education and training are key and we have to think about those investments is coming from both the public and the private sector and i think i would argue that now is not the time to be dmn vesting in that area i agree and here that's exactly what president bush has proposed in fiscal two thousand and eight he's proposed thirty to half billion dollars for federal education programs by fiscal two thousand and twelve that rises only thirty eight point six billion nominal dollars which is a fifteen to twenty percent real cut in education i'm astonished by that policy judgment given what we've heard from the witnesses this morning and i assure you we're going to work to reverse  i ask you about the idea of subsidizing people who don't have health care i think you correctly identified the problem and one of the problems that we have to identify is if we have an employer based health care system which i fav i think it works and i don't want to switch to an individual basis and i think people choose to do that that's fine but i think employer based health care still makes the most sense do you agree with the proposition that there are some employers who cannot afford health care that if if they were forced to pay for it they would go under but there are other employers who could afford to pay for health care but have made a judgment not to do you think that's a fair description of the situation i think that it is fair to  there are employers who quit payer and they're able to hiring workers at low wages and given the lousy benefits so they're able to get away with it how would you what would you suggest that we should consider a system w mandate for some employers who could afford to pay for health care to gather with a subsidy for those who can afford to pay for it and if we did such a thing where would we draw the line between the two what's your suggestion although i think that if you are yours is thinking along the lines of essenti y sharing the responsibility for financing with employers and probably others as i have and i think that that makes considerable sense i think that's the area to be pay particular attention when you require coverage and then provides subsidies is to look at the employers of low wage workers particularly small employers of low wage workers because you want to be very careful that you are not undermining the ability to pay wages are going to offer a job do you think is the use of measurement of net profit for employee as a way of measuring the drawing the line between those who could afford to insure and those who could not think that's a reasonable measure pa i think i'd have to look further at that mr andrews and i'd be happy to i guess my the biggest concern that i would mr chairman thanks for all of me here and thanks to the witnesses for being with us today it's been fascinating the last couple of hearings to listen to the sort of back and forth about what's really going on our economy and how we're doing it of course we've seen large macro numbers about some members of our great country that are feeling the squeeze let me turn to you if i could mr trumka i really got this issue coming out on the so called employee play choice ac and i'm just i just always astounds me that you can testify that quote the system has to be changed to give our working people the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union and yet what you're proposing would take away from all of these union members the right to privacy and the right to vote with a secret ballot which is pretty much in grains in the americans system is that the position of your union leadership that there should be an a process that's open to all and subjecting those workers to possible intimidation from either union members organizers or their employers or others can you that is that your position that you want to do away with the privacy of a secret ballot implicit in your question there's the motions as a current system actually works the current system is failing miserably it is not democratic for a worker to come to work and be put into a room with his supervisor and told questions inquisitively by himself without a representative about the union movement about something he would like to do it's not very democratic for one out of four employers to fire somebody because they would like to have a representative on the job and it's not democratic for people to have for seventy percent of the employers to force their limited i'm sure the chairman is going to hit the button here when we go to the red light i just i'm looking at sunset sussex and trying to understand how you have reached this conclusion that it is in the interest of these workers to whether unionize is for the government to quote hold a secret ballot election and keep the workers decisions private seventy one percent of union workers agreed that the current secret ballot process is fair seventy eight percent congress should he said congress should keep the existing secret ballot election process so how are our you're reaching the conclusion that all these union members are wrong and that they are would be subject to lessen some of the nation if they had to say in public whether or not they were going to support a union from our magazine many of those union members have never been subjected to reorganizing drive they've had in the union was that facility when they came there second of all i can pull out and show us with statistics that twenty to twenty five thousand workers every single year are fired their crime they wanted to have a union they wanted to have more voice on the job there's also a statistic that after statistic to show the imbalance of power between an employer an employer sits down an employee in a room and starts to ask them about their intentions about signing a union that's not very democratic it would be like need being able to take the average american off of their job and say who are you going to vote for the president of the united states and find a way i vote for this candidate or that candidate and i really think you ought to do the same there's a total lack of democracy if the system works as well on the job as the system works in the country perhaps you could consider that but it doesn't those workers when given the facts or remember faces organizing drive those statistics shift dramatically and ask you to pull the people that have actually gone through a drive and had intimidated been harassed been followed been photographed or been fired by their employer and see what the statistics show then they believe that the current system is broken but it doesn't work and it needs to be changed dramatically if you want to address the wage gap in this country and the growing share of inequality in this country one of the fastest way to do that is just sit down and let people have a free choice about having a unique because here's the difference without a union and i'll tell you a story my wife comes to me and says she wants to do something and if i simply say no well you can imagine what would happen my wife would do what she wanted to do because we're a relatively equal bargaining power my young son comes to me and says i want to go to jamaica and i say no he has no recourse that's because the bargaining power so despairing what we're trying to do is equalize the bargaining power so you can have a system that works for so that the record is accurate that the majority signed up is allowed under existing law it's been allowed since nine hundred thirty five the only and it's the same way as if you petition for an election you have to have thirty percent of the people signed for an election they sign a majority signed up same process the only difference is that the employer today can veto it if it's been in the last nine hundred thirty five it's been used many times but it's all out  mr chairman let me first say that i know that everyone is concerned about health care but i have to say for the first times ten years being here anyhow that at least which we're talking about it seriously and i think that's an important step i have doubts whether the federal government personally can actually solve the health care crisis that's in this country but i'm excited that the states are actually looking at what fits for their individual state i know the massachusetts plan could never see new york i'm hoping that the california plan might work out because we're more in tune to each other as far as population diversity in everything like that but it's a start and i think we've got a long way to go but let's hope maybe the best model will come out and then we can assist those states because looking at medicare medicaid i personally feel that new york and some other states are not getting their fair share share so we're being disadvantaged on that so i'm hoping that we can solve that problem but going back on the squeeze on the middle middle income families i have to tell you i live on long island i personally make a very nice salary working here more than i've ever made certainly as a nurse and i can tell you that my son and my son and his wife they work they make a decent salary probably earning one hundred twenty thousand dollars between the two of them  struggling they don't go out i think they want to go to a movie once in a while they go food shopping and you know gas prices heating oil prices everything else has gone up tremendously  their salaries have not kept up have topped to what's going on and we just had a report which we do every year called the long island index and when it was considered a very wealthy area our salaries are basically hire o nationwide then there are some other areas but with that without any of the wages on the ground now only five percent higher than the rest of the country and yet everything else is going up higher i'm hearing it from a lot of my constituents that they have the negotiations of your pains and your health care if their salaries are going up as far as their inflation or what's a living on for where are those workers live the families are feeling the same screens as everybody else the bankruptcy laws in an offensive manner to get rid of the health care costs or to promise to people and that's a dumping a bigger load on the workers more and more companies are dumping their pension or cutting the amount of pension that was  and normally in this situation worker ends up with a whole lot less we have to solve the problem we have to solve the problem of pensions and the bankruptcy laws and we have to bring a voice to someone workers sort of taken to go shoot and actually grow a company trend you also state that you stack the rate of increase in the next several decades to be slower than what was experienced in the past several decades that doesn't sound good for our country to be very honest with you so i guess my question would be that's another subject that we're going to have to talk reported that we see these other nations investing in education but i'm going to stand up for my kids i say that yes we still behind in math and science but our kids are still innovative can't think outside the box because they have a well more well rounded education we should strike a better but oh gosh my time's up so i'm hoping that the quick answer let me just try to answer the question first about why things have slowed down partly why they grew so quickly during the period world war two was as the baby boom cohorts began entering the labor market they were one of the most educated cohorts compared to the cohorts that they were replacing so the workers who are retiring lack like much less likely don't have a college education whereas those large cohort that they do them coming into the labor market was much more educated so you had workers leaving with less education workers coming in with more and so that really led to this boom toward a more highly educated workforce what we're seeing today is that while it may be the case that the upcoming workers are so much more likely to have a college education sites and those in the past the cohorts just aren't as big anymore and  are retiring we're seeing that educated cohort of baby them are starting to retire so it seems that even down there isn't as much of a gradient over time in the proportion getting a college education and the relative sizes of these groups so there are different projection some suggest a complete stagnation in the proportion of the workforce that would have a college education i would suggest somewhat growing proportion but not nearly as fast in the past so a key issue really is what do we need to do it in court courage more individuals up and coming to obtain the skills certainly seen through the workforce whether that's through a formal college degree in some cases it may be vocational technical training and then i think we need to look all the way through our education system  education i mentioned even preschool system there's a need to look at what we can do along the way to foster skill development and to encourage continued education and training throughout the life course th that are facing america and the doctor said i just want to talk to you a little bit first and ask him questions about the associated health plans i know this committee has taken the lead i don't think it's her answer but in my opinion it is at least an answer to  well mr davis i think that i definitely understand the desire of small businesses to find what i referred to in my testimony as a place by our way to buy that enables them to participate in getting their employees health care coverage the problem with association health plans is that it does so in a way that actually perpetuates and expands the ability of insurance companies to select the people to cherry pick select the  think that i'm i want i did not mean to say that i'm not supportive of small employers ability to pick willingness and desire to participate in the system for going back to the way in which we created i do believe that we really need national policy action that create that place to buy along with appropriate subsidies for those employers as we go through going that way of low wage workers a place to buy that allows employer to contribute the individual to contribute along with the public subsidies but just as the whether through employment or any other kind of market for health insurance i'll throw in a way that makes insurance available to our of us regardless of our  maybe you can talk about where the issues can you please elaborate on what you mean by reasonable mandate well what i was particularly concerned about in my testimony was to challenge the proposals that workers or income people just to require them without considering affordability is a very real problem i know and when i look at it i was saying to expect people to pay twenty percent of their income for the cost of health insurance ten percent of their income toward their cost of health insurance is viewed by the experts in the field as a catastrophic expense for most people have really gotten sick yet so and so i think we have to look at of abrogation happening out should be set within the beltway beltway here on capitol here but what i try wouldn't characterize it quite that way i think that we are left to members of congress to represent us and i'm pleased to see that we're moving towards developing a national health policy that i meant to indicate that earlier in terms of looking at people's obligations in terms of ability to pay and i think looking at having obligations whether it's premiums or limits on cost sharing that are set in relation to that this bill will come up soon and then we'll have an opportunity to you know to to let people have the basic rights they have and let me tell you i've been involved in organizing drives and you're absolutely right i can tell you they were their brutal and once you've been through one it's awfully hard to relate but my question to you was one trillion i was president of a clothing textile workers local union and a steward there for over thirteen years and as you know we nationally lost thousands and thousands of jobs on trade and if you take a look at the weather it's in textile and steel of electronics everything you know it's very difficult to have health care we don't have a job so i was wondering you know when you address in your state as one if you could maybe tell us from your perspective what you think we can  us playing field you know you talked about trade negotiations for what is it we can do to to give americans a fighting chance so that we're not always left with the trade take it or leave it type trade comes to us where we know we're going to lose manufacturing jobs and people say well you know i'm a free trader well i also want to see fair trade so wonder if you could maybe comment on that in terms of what you would like to see a stable to do with with the issue regarding trade first of all i don't you to  read my written testimony because there are several pages that deal with with trade and what needs to be done with and i think to summarize it very very quickly we need to have a strategic pause while we look at and review all the trade agreements that we've gone through objectives which the senate and the house have pointed out and urged upon him and mandated actually upon him aren't fulfilled in those agreements so we think that we need to be far more involved in that process and we need to look at the agreements themselves if you look at currently there four or five sections that i mentioned in my testimony that need to be reviewed carefully and if you look at i labored visor reports for each one of those girls which would be glad to submit to you they talk about the shortcoming in every one of those bills and ways to remedy those shortcomings who think the train can be a very very good thing right now it's currently not working for american workers we think there's very should include workers rights provisions environmental provisions and they should have a mechanism that is equal to that of all the other provisions in the training room long a quick question before my five minutes to start by i understand from talking to a lot of people in the labor movement that that's the toughest thing that they have to negotiate when they go through this collective bargaining process and i know i had it with me was the whole issue of health care you know employers are just absolutely saying this is a you know a deal breaker for us we simply haven't had very difficult time so it was it would seem to me i don't know if you would agree it would seem to me that we better be doing something looking at some type of a national health care system or reforming what we have because you know we get the other side of negotiations and it never seems to hinges hinge on pensions don't seem to hinge on salaries it is it always seems to be health care is the single most important issue that we have to try to struggle to get through there's no question that health care is the topic of bargaining between if you don't do anything about health care and pensions which it brings in the bankruptcy laws and then but of other things that are being abused that way so it's a a series of solutions and if you look at the testimony that we've our nation needs to do in order to sustain and go for the next generation and so these conversations a very very important mike my question is to mr i chat i like to just do it you know attitude and philosophy is some of the problems by the way about teaching transcends minority neighborhoods or poor neighborhoods it's also a problem in my neighborhoods in terms of there was a study by the department of education that only forty one percent of the teachers in high school teach math and science ever major so this is a new issue i think one of the issues is one that has little to do with public policy and that's to do with the fact that we do a pretty good job as a society of making math science engineering pretty awful and i mean i've contended for many years that one of the reasons one of our kids don't take math and science is because it's hard  and secondly not only is it hard but we create this aura about and about how do i mean take a look at an engineering schools brochure or their catalog you will see in probably about forty percent of the engineering schools catalogs ranking almost about how many people are going to make it and through the program and then we wonder why a lot of kids don't end up taking it we've got to do something and i've said this many many times before when we had a television national television program l a law about ten years ago i've always contended that we really needed was another is really interesting stuff and it's a really if you will sexy career but we make it into this grudge that makes very different on by the way we make that for people across socioeconomic status and so i would argue that we've got to do that we've been doing some discussions with some people out in california about this whole notion of we need a national t v program that espouses that has it's a situation program or weekly come together democrats and we had some really wonderful presentations and in some of the challenges had to do with labor yesterday labor day i i happen to believe that a lot of the challenges that those who benefitted from the labor movement did not pass their history on so the next generation so that they truly understand that that has meant for building the middle class for catapult many young people into that it becomes a public conversation not just the work from the employer but the community and as a whole i believe that if we're going to build as we build the new dimensions i'm sorry i'm going to rap but have labor in this country that it has to engage folks who aren't even employed yet so they understand the value of the sacrifice in the building of labor in this nation thank y there's no question that the best kept secret is the war being waged on workers right now and their right to join unions and have a representation we have failed in getting that out we feel for lot of reasons one labor is no longer taught in schools that's been cut out of the curriculum we are as labor members perhaps spend less time with our with our loved ones our children's passing around that heritage so some of the blame is with us as well the public debate starts right here with just committee  the twenty first century understanding of the relation between management and workers to get the point where unions are not the exception that the normal  glad to overcome this idea that it's a very as zero sum game and that if one side wins the other side has to lose you know i've been involved in organizing and i think very damaging for our country i mean certainly when we recognize that the advantages that come to union workers of of better wages and better access to healthcare and better access to pensions and better access to  where collective bargaining units are the normal rather than the exception there are a lot of a lot of issues rolled into today's hearing and i'd like to quickly get to two of them that i think really are related one is how u s companies are at a competitive disadvantage with respect to providing health care competitive many of the problems we face can be traced to that level what we were talking about with regard to science education is one who continually espouse the scientific thing thing as a scientist myself a science fairs yes they still go on i'd like to address the lack of broad based science education and this is how these two are related in the broad base and this is what i wanted to ask dr fatter and and mr archie proves the lack of broad based science education the lack of broad based the workforce having skills it's not just getting ten percent well educated to be internationally competitive and similarly for health care not just having some of the industries competitive but have it a society i mean that's why we're talking about the middle class these weeks well i not only you concur with what you're suggesting but i've got a son as a sophomore in college and one of the points i used to make them in high school was  when i was in high school if i knew a little bit about science and things like that it was ok but it wasn't just purely important because there are lots of other things you could do and i said the point for you is  understand science to understand your lights because of the way things are moving so rapidly in terms of changes in technology innovations and understanding that's so i think that is the case i'm one of the one point i would make which i alluded to earlier is you'd be amazed now at high tech jobs the number of people without a college degree what other skills they have to have in terms of particular mathematical reasoning skills on certain basic scientific skills on now these are very well paying jobs many of whom by the way have a a an associate's degree from a community college and i would make one last point on that probably the most innovation going on right now in terms of education is at the community college level and i have a feeling it's because of the fact that they're not hung up on all the other stuff that four year schools are  in terms of you know academic prestige and all that stuff but mr mccann mentioned this about a community college in california middlesex county college over massachusetts has been the contractor for require really intense skills and physics and intense skills in terms of electrical engineering and things like that but anybody now who's coming into the high stick industry that or have that broad based science background i would just be brief and reinforce what you both said about everybody having to have i would say we talk about the the problem of health care costs creating competitive problems in a number of ways but it seems to me what we want to highlight is the that means everybody's got to have powers mr chairman i just want to note that the mr i actually could have equally well talked about middlesex community college in new jersey but i've looked at it a second time and saw that it was an employee free choice act and that's a good change in my opinion let me just ask the may have missed a trunk a quick question in europe they have they're able to continue to have pretty good wages pretty good benefits and so forth in western europe where we cry about the fact that we can't provide health care to our people and that of course lead bill is that sho repair some places don't even respect that so i'm kind of that's the difference i'm not talking about you know colombia or you know indonesians talk about comparing us that you are and then second like the educators to answer a seminar questioning in thirty seconds or less first of all those countries most of them health care is not part of the cost of the product it is a national cost this supplied you every one of our citizens so they don't have to add on to our products second of all none of those countries that i'm aware of had their legislative bodies pass a law that said that our government can't negotiate prices down from from drug company says our country do it here which allowed them to continue overcharging and we have the mass we go to canada and get drugs for half price second of all they focus on wellness not just fixing a problem after it occurred they focus on preventing a problem from happening and if you look at the results of their health care system they get much better success rates and then we do in the united states they live longer they have much in our system is really broke in a lot of different ways so i'd like to be able to continue on but i'll pass and when you send people shopping what you do whether it's education or health care you end up taking a part that all in it together whether it's a public schools or employer sponsored health insurance or whatever it's still one that brings  income role in calm whatever color we are whatever money we have brings us together and you big end up in a situation in which there's a risk of a lot of cherry picking of discrimination and disadvantage in many while advan attack on american worker and i think to some degree that's true and it's hearings like this that focus on the focus on the middle class but i think you're going to bring that secret out and tell the story some excited about the series of hearings that we're holding on the middle class middle class really is the story of america that's the story of america the story of the growth of the middle class in this country i spent i spent eighteen years in the health care arena  working with nonprofit hospitals and senior living providers and others and navigated the maze of regulations that apply to health care and i've lived to tell about it fairly i have a question about health care i believe increasingly you're hearing a universal desire in this country for universal health care coverage that's coming from all quarters and there's really a consensus there and it's more about how do we is is is our system being waited on the back end and there's not enough delivery of preventive care on the front end which would save a lot of money my question doctor failure to you is addressing this chicken and egg problem so we move to a more preventive care oriented system with all the savings that it offers before we a stab rush universal health care coverage or do you think we have to get universal health care coverage and access before we can really explore the potential for a system that's focused more on preventive care or is it some combination where we start with this so i think we can do on both together i don't see any reason that you have to do one before the other and we need them both i talked about the adequacy of that effect when we talk about a universal coverage similar proposal a part of that is whether in the insurance package or in some other way we've got to have the benefits for preventive and primary care in order to keep people healthy and not just have them get sicker and require more expensive services and that there's no reason that that can't be a  mr chairman and i apologize for being late i needed to be somewhere else at the same time i do have a couple of questions so if you've addressed these already i do apologize but mr i've heard you talk quite a bit about science and technology and the need for education and i absolutely agree with you but i also know that we have problems with reading and writing and basic comprehension in this country and everybody will go into science but everybody will have to be able to read and write and be  company's and it's not for the immigrant community but for american high school graduates there's remedial reading programs and some remedial writing programs that are sponsored by the by the companies themselves and that's not uncommon at all i mean i think that when we talk about math and science education i'm certainly not suggesting that's to the exclusion of all those others because you're not going to get very far if you i think that you know i think our kids on the proficiency on the reading stuff has actually gotten better over the last two or three years i don't know whether that's going to continue or not but but you've got to have it i mean it's it's fundamental to having a good job and to being successful that's encouraging to me to hear you say that you've actually seen an improvement and i want to point out and community colleges are doing wonderful work and i work in one myself of the world and making sure that ravi introduces science and technology and i am committed to this truly committed so that our kids can stay productive they also have to an understanding of the world there and delivery to analyze and extract information they need so i would encourage community colleges and four year colleges to put some of that extra stuff and that's what thank you very much entire community and certainly i'm sure you've addressed this in some way do you have some thoughts about how we're able to transmit and support parent in the community so that we can essentially be teaching them the skills suggested that that relationship early between parents and children is very important and i'm just you know tapping your expertise in a different area to see is there something that you would like to suggest that as we began to work and we're no sort of covers the age fan and one area that we've been investigating it ran for a number of years is looking at early childhood as an important period to think about investing in children far from the standpoint of form of a ranch the children might participate in but also the way in which we can work with families to help parents understand that in fortan phase of development and improve the opportunities they provide for their children and so actually in the study we've looked at a number of different programs including what you might call more formal parent training programs and some of them are simple as providing information to parents when they visit a pediatrician and providing them information about for example the importance of reading to their children or other ways in which to understand their behavior in development and others that are more from a bring parent to specific classroom sessions to talk to them about aspects of development and i've seen that way all of those kinds of ways of thinking about investing in families children and parents are important component of preparing children central school to be ready to be successful and then those investments also i suspect will pay off in terms of parents interaction with children as they continue at older ages understanding the importance of their education and making those first of all whenever a family a single mother let's talk about a single mother single father and work and two maybe three jobs just to get by now i can promise you know when they come home they're not going to be able to spend a lot of time helping their child do homework they may as my fellow student in some of them said an education is really just the ticket out of there but we have to look at the whole picture i mean you have to make it economically feasible for the parents when you have a child whose parent is working minimum wage job that hasn't been raised for years and they're competing with those are children who have computers at home and they don't have a computer there are disadvantages and i think we have to look at the to her system not just the parent because i think without the parent involvement every study shows that it's far level and even even even the middle class that are lower middle class would go a long way to helping young people be exposed to a little range of opportunities but i'm just wondering you know issue that i think we all want to try to get our hands around and see if there is a way because the kids are ready to learn and learning and all that we try and do in math and science and other areas is not going to be a pie so your concerns especially on the undervalued when the currency also the unfair trade practices subsidizing that chinese government and last session we were successful in moving legislation through the house realize that the concern is about companies chorusing employees rights imitating i'm not to vote in favor but i think we have laws you know that if that and practices are engaged in you can file a complaint to address works and the current system doesn't work i mean one out of every four organizing drives a worker gets fired now you can imagine the dampening effect that has on people's free choice whenever one of your fellow workers who's been advocating a union gets fired and the only remedy they're going to get is their job back with maybe back pay and for five years or so it's a great deterrent they also get intimidated and harassed on a daily basis i think or weakness in your argument as you're willing to assume that the national labor relations board can protect against employers harassment today somehow but it couldn't protect against employers against unions down the road like pratt i'm not i'm not suggesting the and people normally exchange information and they disagree but they work together gather every day that's a normal process and just like whether to voted for george bush or john kerry that same discussion happened every day no adverse effects are probably better discussion having a lively debate with your employees who can't fire you it's a healthy thing to say this is the good things about a union and something so this is why i don't like the union that's a healthy thing people information back and forth and it's far more democratic than the system we have today where the clearly there could call that same individual into a room all by themselves sit him down in front of a desk with three or four supervisors and say about this union stuff what do you think about that union stuff now i'm not telling you what to do or use all the right code words and then you have all the national labor relations board right now that is  the employee free choice act that's already lost rights under the act you know nine hundred thirty five it was authorized but now want to talk about something non democratic the employer unilaterally has the right to veto whether you can use or not up for a minute or two and i agree that that's a positive including discussing whether to unionize not but i do think it's different if you're discussing how you voted for i think you should vote for for president versus whether you should fail to unionize something it impact directly in that plan i think that's a different type discussion and those discussions should continue in our positive light i think if there's problems in the system we should be able to find a way to address the problems and i would not disagree that there are problems without taking right away the fundamental process in a democracy which is the right to vote in private whether it be and i a lecturer of public officials or in whether to unionize so my vision isn't that we shouldn't work to improve and make sure the wrongdoing that's occurring in your opinion today and not being punished doesn't continue in the future so we improve the labor laws but do so in a way that e only people who have the privacy and say system is employer employees have no privacy they get fired upon and they get an intimidated they get harassed and we get fired and their only crime and want to have a bigger say on the job so that they can have a little more dignity a little more respect and they can approach a bargaining table as equals with an employer and make decisions that ultimately good for both sides let me just say this is i think this is an important point everybody a spouse employee employer cooperation we need to work more carefully and closely with our employers in a global economy and i've been an advocate of that over years and i've put my bargaining power where my mouth was at as well when i did it but under the current system the first encounters that we have is a knock down drag out affair where the employer can harass intimidation and fire people and then after having done that said you wanna know let's cooperate i'd suggest there's a better way to do it so i would agree and hopefully we can get to a better way without taking the right to vote in private so but thank you for your testimony for all my projects for my late arrival thank you mr chairman i thank you something for that i've always been intrigued by and i'm not seeing it and because of the bell various elements that theoretically and i know which makes the doing what they're doing all really might become a potential model do you think so and if so why and why not i think you're right to be encouraged by it because it's got a model of shared responsibility of the employer participating the individual taxpayer everybody's  it's got what i call in my testimony a place to buy where place you can where to get insurance without being discriminated against and it's got the concept of adequate benefits and subsidies that make some of that make affordable coverage but even they even given all that they are struggling to come up with the financing to make the guarantees of benefits and affordability and to deliver on it and i think it reflects a concern that we intangible about our system of education that despite all its challenges and gosh there's challenges that truly sets it apart at least as i went around the world from other countries from as much as curtain to china of being root versus something that makes our people think of how not one do you think i've got that in this effort to do things is there something priceless we have here was you watch these engineers come back and forth from other countries and things like that i think i will i guess i really agree with you except that i might disagree with what the institution that's causing it because i would argue that no country in the world has yet replicated the kind of entrepreneurial innovation  fact that we've got people in the educational come out of our educational system who are questioning things and who have got that creativity i'm not sure that's a function of the educational system as much is as  societal values and i think that when i go all over the world because we've got a couple of offices overseas and i've got obviously companies who are very involved in that and and i do think that  when we're in a situation of comparing the united states particularly by the way silicon valley we're a in brussels a couple months ago the chairman of the board were meeting with the four members of the german delegation they were talking about how important because the german president's going to be the president of the european union for the next six months and they were talking about how one of her biggest priorities is going to be comparing those and they then proceeded to talk about a whole new set of regulations they wanted to impose and we were wondering how does that connect and it's a very different system in europe it's a difference of the some degree in asia but one of the reasons why i remain was someone who just as you are now i think fighting this battle for in the congress for twelve years not to improve the last science education and we are making progress but not nearly as much or as rapidly as we sho and i think that's going to be a key factor in our competitiveness but also just to comment on your statement of underscore the structural i have often said the same thing the reason we were in the competitive in this battle with other countries is but it's clear and i think it's because the people coming to this country from other countries have that spirit they were adventurers they were they made some very very difficult choices to come here including my grandparents i could tell some incredible stories about the hardships they encountered but that's what this country is made of and i just hope we don't go soft and the our european ancestor countries are at this time but that we keep that you keep encouraging that creative spirit because that's the real advantage we have over almost every country and many countries as you well know the boss is first of the new ideas the employees are not we're a country that streisand ideas from the bottom going up and and we reward people at the lowest levels for good ideas they get heard in my brief time here i really don't track i think our country is on track but we've got a real battle ahead of us because for two reasons first of all the world's disparity mentioned but secondly we play fair most of the a hearing on that a few years ago very interesting testimony countries or so i think standards for their imports so tough as time understanding our close can't get in there but their cars couldn't need to do their say prime people from your industry in other cement telling me for years we've got to go to china you've got to go to india see what's going on and we it was from the best trips i've ever been on with those government leaders industry leaders expectation levels and that everything else do well in school because that's their only hope to get out of tremendous poverty in the prob say help but they also said i was are better on entrepreneurial and the soft skills are students and i said i think one of the reasons there was that they had limited their their families to one child and i said a lot of those skills you learn if you come before you know summer times you're still crawl and then you're learning to compete with the older brother or sister younger brother or sister and you learn that give creativity and all of that at a very very young age i agree with what ron said a lot of it is the people that come here bring that spirit but still i think a lot of that is learned there and so i think we're doing right we'll continue to do well in progress is to try to see how we can strengthen america's middle class and the only way we're going to find these economic solutions that help american families is to have dialogue and conversation and i think all of you certainly contribute to that we are going to continue in this series because we do have to find a way to stop the squeeze on the middle class that's what made this country great people lower classes