Manufacturing Skills Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. I thank my colleague from Delaware. It has really been an honor to work with him on the Manufacturing Skills Act, and we share the goal to ensure that manufacturing remains vibrant and a vibrant source of jobs in our economy.

Training our workforce to have the right skills to address today's 21st-century manufacturing is quite different from yesteryear. Today as we look at manufacturing, we see the skills our workers need: critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, math and writing skills and the ability to communicate, an understanding of the manufacturing process, and an ability to engage workers in improving that process. This wasn't necessarily the case 20 or 30 years ago, but the United States is poised and has an opportunity to be the leader in advanced manufacturing.

We have a talented workforce, but our workers need the type of training that is going to address this new type of manufacturing that is focused on having the right skills and technology, use of technology and problem-solving skills that we know workers in New Hampshire and Delaware are quite capable of if we give them the tools they need.

A reality of today's world is that although our economy is bigger, we are more interconnected than ever before. Job training needs to be customized to the particular business area--the city, the State, the local economy. There is no ``one size fits all'' model. This is especially true in manufacturing--and I visited many manufacturers in our State--where different companies and places need workers with varying skills.

That is one of the reasons I am so enthusiastic about the Manufacturing Skills Act that Senator Coons and I have introduced together. Rather than prescribe job-training standards or dictate reforms from Washington, our bill allows local officials, business leaders, and workers to come together in local communities to build training plans that fit their needs and help grow jobs in the community because Wilmington and Newark, DE, have very different workforce challenges, perhaps, than some areas of New Hampshire, whether it is Nashua or Concord or Berlin. We need to ensure that local officials, local employers, and the people of our States are using the grants we are able to provide under this legislation to design new training programs for those localities to really allow those workers to be trained for 21st-century manufacturing skills.

By both targeting manufacturing and giving localities the discretion to design the reforms that fit their needs, we have come together on a bill that could help our country meet some of its most critical economic challenges and opportunities.

I know Senator Coons has a strong background in manufacturing and has worked very closely with employers and workers in Delaware to hear from them about what job-training needs they have to ensure Delaware can have that 21st-century workforce. I would love to hear more about some of the challenges he has heard about from employers and workers in Delaware.

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Ms. AYOTTE. I thank my colleague from Delaware.

As I look at the new Congress coming in, I view our bill--the Manufacturing Skills Act--as an opportunity where we can all work together to help workers and employers across the country meet the challenges of ensuring that manufacturing continues to thrive and grow in this country. These are good-paying jobs where the workers--who are excellent and want the opportunity but just need the skills--need the type of technology training and understanding of process, such as the lean process, and how we can improve our manufacturing.

The bill Senator Coons and I worked on together will allow the local decisionmakers to put together the best training that will help create good-paying jobs, not only in Delaware, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin but across this country.

I hope we can take up this bill very early on in the next session and get behind it.

In New Hampshire, there are 66,000 jobs that are directly connected and related to manufacturing. As I have traveled to visit manufacturing employers throughout our State, I have been hearing about the same issues that my colleague from Delaware has heard; that is, that they are challenged in actually finding the right workforce for excellent-paying jobs and opportunities, but they need partnerships and help to get that trained workforce in place.

New Hampshire, similar to Delaware, has had some strong partnerships among the private sector and community colleges in my State, and we need to do more of that in the future. I believe our bill will allow those local education institutions to partner with private employers and State and local officials so the training is valuable and will ensure that everyone has a stake in the right workforce going forward.

I wish to thank some of the businesses I have had the privilege of visiting in our State. So many businesses have told me--whether it is Burndy in Littleton or Velcro in Manchester or Codet in Colebrook or Hypertherm in the Upper Valley--that our private sector is focusing on this issue, and our Manufacturing Skills Act can help companies move forward and ensure that our workers have the right skills so we can grow jobs in this country.

I thank Senator Coons for his leadership on this issue and the work he has done every single day in this body to ensure that the people of Delaware have good-paying jobs and the right workforce training. This is a goal I share with the Senator from Delaware.

I wish to also thank him for his leadership on other issues, including the protection of this Nation and many other issues he has become an expert on in this body.

I hope we can all get behind bipartisan solutions, such as that offered by my colleague from Delaware, and I hope many of our colleagues will think about joining us on this Manufacturing Skills Act. As we go into the new Congress, I hope this will be a priority for our leadership so we can bring this bill to the floor for a vote right away.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank my colleague from Delaware for his leadership and work on this important issue. I look forward to continuing to work on this until we get it passed.

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