Posted on 05/16/2011 5:32:53 AM PDT by TSgt
Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Hutchison and members of this committee, my name is Mike Rowe, and I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity to share a few thoughts about our country’s relationship with manufacturing, hard work, and skilled labor.
I’m here today because of my Grandfather.
His name was Carl Knobel, and he made his living in Baltimore as a Master Electrician. He was also a plumber, a mechanic, a mason, and a carpenter. Everyone knew him as a jack-of-all-trades. I knew him as a magician.
For most of his life, my grandfather woke up clean and came home dirty. In between, he accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous. Some days he might re-shingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. Or maybe run electricity out to our barn. He helped build the church I went to as a kid, and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in. He could fix or build anything, but to my knowledge he never once read the directions. He just knew how stuff worked.
I remember one Saturday morning when I was twelve. I flushed the toilet in the same way I always had. The toilet however, responded in a way that was completely out of character. There was a rumbling sound, followed by a distant gurgle. Then, everything that had gone down reappeared in a rather violent and spectacular fashion.
Naturally, my grandfather was called in to investigate, and within the hour I was invited to join he and my Dad in the front yard with picks and shovels.
By lunch, the lawn was littered with fragments of old pipe and mounds of dirt. There was welding and pipe-fitting, blisters and laughter, and maybe some questionable language. By sunset we were completely filthy. But a new pipe was installed, the dirt was back in the hole, and our toilet was back on its best behavior. It was one of my favorite days ever.
Thirty years later in San Francisco when my toilet blew up again. This time, I didn’t participate in the repair process. I just called my landlord, left a check on the kitchen counter, and went to work. When I got home, the mess was cleaned up and the problem was solved. As for the actual plumber who did the work, I never even met him.
It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes. There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought.
At this point my grandfather was well into his eighties, and after a long visit with him one weekend, I decided to do a TV show in his honor. Today, Dirty Jobs is still on the air, and I am here before this committee, hoping to say something useful. So, here it is.
I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. A big one. Something that addresses the widening Skills Gap head on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce.
Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The Skills Gap is real, and it’s getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They’re retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them.
Alabama’s not alone. A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn’t a lack of funds. It wasn’t a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.
In general, we’re surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn’t be. We’ve pretty much guaranteed it.
In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of “higher education” to such a lofty perch, that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled “alternative.” Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as “vocational consolation prizes,” best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of “shovel ready” jobs for a society that doesn’t encourage people to pick up a shovel.
In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a “good job” into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber – if you can find one – is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.
I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they’re in short supply because we don’t acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.
My written testimony includes the details of several initiatives designed to close The Skills Gap, all of which I’ve had the privilege to participate in. Go Build Alabama, I Make America, and my own modest efforts through Dirty Jobs and mikeroweWORKS. I’m especially proud to announce “Discover Your Skills,” a broad-based initiative from Discovery Communications that I believe can change perceptions in a meaningful way.
I encourage you to support these efforts, because closing The Skills Gap doesn’t just benefit future tradesmen and the companies desperate to hire them. It benefits people like me, and anyone else who shares my addiction to paved roads, reliable bridges, heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing.
The Skills Gap is a reflection of what we value. To close the gap, we need to change the way the country feels about work. Mike Rowe May 11, 2011
This is very good, I love Mike Rowe. My father was a jack of all trades like his grandfather. He was a welder first but there was nothing else that he could not figure out and fix.
*****the government has no duty or responsibility to push one field of employment over another*****
Nor should the government foster free education for some career choices and not others....but it does.
Architects might design superb structures - but who puts the bricks where they belong???? Answer: Guys who go through years of trade apprenticeship and ‘hands on’ hard labor.
Watching some of the HGTV and DIY programming has educated me on just how much skill is needed by plumbers, electricians and construction workers to make our world work.
High schools, for example, use to offer classes/majors like auto mechanics, wood shop, etc... They no longer do that. Many students would take a class simply to acquire some of the basic skills needed as well. My concern is this: the economy is making it extremely difficult if not impossible for many students to go to college. I find a push to skilled jobs as more of a distress call than anything else. Yes, we need people to fill those jobs. However, there is a difference between choosing that job and being forced to choose that job because of our messed up economy IMHO.
I'm a college graduate, too. From that day back in 1987 when I first showed up for Freshman orientation, I knew exactly why I wanted to be there and what I was working towards. I was utterly stunned at the number of my peers who were there on their daddy's dime to figure out what they wanted to do.
I had an uncle and still have two cousins that sound like Mike Rowe's grandfather, one of whom is a GC I worked for during my high school summers. The things I learned from those men have proved every bit as invaluable as anything I learned in college.
Least we not forget how the trades, specifically the building trades, has been undermined by that attitude. Isn't that one reason of the flow of illegal aliens in this country. (not saying you would take that approach)
I think many of the trades people have given up the fight for the same dollars the illegals will work for and have become a large percentage of unemployed college grads.
Exactly, it’s not that we should ask for the federal government to start favoring this type of work over another. It’s that they should stop favoring the styles of work they already do through massive subsidies. College education is far too subsidized in this country and generally adds very little in the way of value to the average student. We still bandy about statistics about increased earning from a college degree, and yet I guarantee those numbers are no longer valid. Well maybe somewhat valid because the people who don’t go to college these days don’t get actual job training otherwise and end up either taking bottom of the heap service jobs (’fries with that?’) or living on the dole.
If the government would stop distorting the job market the situation would not be the mess it currently is.
Perhaps. But if the illegals make up a portion of the skilled population, then where is the gap?
I agree more with the poster who remarked that skilled trade unions and government regulation skew the market (downward) for those trades, hence fewer people invest the time in learning the skills. And, as you point out, to the extent the government looks the other way at illegals, the wage will be depressed, causing people to look elsewhere for good pay.
The same dynamic is going to play out, in this country, with doctors.
Union and ogvernment agency licensing requirements have pretty much eliminated the ability of somebody to make a living as a "jack-of-all-trades" anymore.
MEMPHIS, TN – “Every Child, Every Day, College Bound.” It’s a slogan introduced by former Memphis City Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson. School Board Member Kenneth Whalum has proposed a resolution to discontinue the slogan. He says first we must address the district’s dropout rate which is close to fifty percent. “Secondly it’s a slap in the face for every self respecting plumber, everybody who didn’t have to go to college to make a living. It’s a slap in the face to them. Taking away a slogan would at least on the face of it indicate to our constituents that we are not crazy.”
Not every parent is crazy about this slogan. “I would hate for a child who’s just equally intelligent in other areas that may not be on the college level to be disappointed or discouraged or feel that they can’t make it or do anything because I’ve got college tagged behind me,” MCS Parent Kim Clark tells myEyewitnessNews.com.
There are some parents who say what’s on the banner works just fine. They feel it sets the bar high and that’s what the district needs. “The slogan is okay with me,” MCS Parent Latrina Hull tells myEyewitnessNews.com. “My kids are straight A students.”
Whalum says hundreds of MCS Teachers brought this problem to his attention. The resolution to eliminate the slogan will be voted on at the next school board meeting. Whalum says his hope is to replace these words with action. “Let’s stop worrying about our image. Let’s stop pitching mantras and slogans. Let’s educate our children. You know it’s a lie, and the kids in the classroom know it’s a lie, the teachers know it’s a lie; the parents know it’s a lie. “Not only that, it’s disingenuous.”
“To get a good job, get a good education” was the catch line to a series of ‘public service announcement’ for years.
I think it was part of a federal government program somehow related to the space race, and then the GI bill
Like many other towns our school district felt that Shop and Home-ec should be reduced or phased out. SAD, STUPID and very SHORTSIGHTED!
When I was in school, we had auto shop, etc, to train students. Even built a home that would be donated to charity. Nowdays, we have extensive athletics programs and fine arts programs but absolutely no building arts programs or auto shop.
You’re right that not everyone is college material. I know more than one millionare that never graduated from college, but run a landscaping company (started with two guys and a lawnmower), plumbers, electricians, etc. We really need more emphasis in this area.
The reason it won't happin is that the market for all those 'studies' PhDs would disappear overnight if not for the constant procession of captive students either taking required 'studies' courses or following in the footstepa of professors.
Whether it is a doctorate degree in Physics or a doctorate degree in transgendered tiddlywinks, the person who holds the degree is still called "Doctor".
The flood of people graduating institutions of higher learning with degrees in pap has already diluted the perceived value of the BS and BA, especially for those who obtained degrees in the '70s and earlier.
Shop was cut because the students might get hurt and sue. sigh
Arts now are getting cut for sports.
HEY, you got something against transgendered tiddlywinkers????
To me, those classes were very important. Both sexes need to understand how to cook and the basics of a car etc... My husband had an older cousin who majored in Home Ec in college. Today, that major sounds ridiculous but it taught how to sew clothes, household budgets, cooking, etc... It actually got into many levels of science, economics and such.
When I was in high school a great summer job was “working construction”. You could start as a go’fer and pick up some knowledge of various trades
Thirty years later my son learned that they no longer hire kids for the summer. The illegals work harder and are more experienced.
I was raised and taught that too. However there are fairly large portions of our people, particularly among our young people who believe that any form of work, especially with ones’ hands, is demeaning. Whether they learned that at home or at school or both is a good question.
Well, one guy actually got his own show out of it. Billy the exterminator was featured in one of the earlier seasons of Dirty Jobs. Now Billy the Exterminator is its own show.
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