State of the Union; That's why they call it work; No. 103; 103

Thank You! Funding for this program has been made possible by the Pew Charitable Trust, the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the annual financial support of viewers like you. Tonight on State of the Union, that's why they call it work. On this Labor Day weekend, stressed out and insecure, the striking results of a new survey on work in America. From Silicon Valley, Shelley Coffler, on a workplace revolution.

The reason people should be concerned about what's happening in the Silicon Valley is that as goes Silicon Valley, so goes America. In Cleveland, Susan Page of USA Today captures a day in the life of one American workplace. And from Las Vegas, Enrique Cerna, on a rallying cry for the union movement. These stories plus women refs in the NBA. This actually may happen. And workplace survival tips from the creator of Dwayver. Tonight on State of the Union, that's why they call it work. And now Dave Iverson. Good evening, along with our partners USA Today and National Public Radio, we're pleased to welcome you to our State of the Union Labor Day special. 80 years ago, the poet Carl

Sandberg wrote this about the American worker. I'm the people that crowd the mass. The great work of the world is done through me. Make you wonder what Carl Sandberg would write today about a world that's changing so fast. Whole jobs and industries appear and disappear faster than a mouse click. Tonight, we explore what's going on inside that workplace and what's changed since the first Labor Day celebration over a century ago. 115 years ago, workers were getting ready for New York's first Labor Day parade. It was 1882, and Chester Allen Arthur was in the White House. In 1882, the Brooklyn Bridge was nearing completion, a striking achievement, but one that would also cost 24 bridge workers their lives. In 1882, the average railroad worker put in 13 hour days and made three bucks. The great labor cause of that year was a then radical concept, the eight hour workday.

And so on September 5th, 1882, the first great Labor Day parade took place. 20,000 workers marched down New York's Broadway, championing the eight hour workday. And now it's Labor Day 1997, and according to our new nationwide survey, Americans still have plenty of workplace worries. In fact, more than 70 percent say workers today have more stress than they used to, and nearly 60 percent say the average worker has to work harder than workers did 20 or 30 years ago. To find out what's behind those concerns, we decided to track a day in the life of just one building, one American workplace. Because as Carl Sandberg also wrote, even one building has a soul full of dreams. We found our building and our first story in Cleveland, Ohio. It's reported by Susan Page, White House Bureau Chief of USA Today. Miss Wilde, show 755. So are you happy with your job? Is this exactly what you want

to be doing? No, I guess I'm 27 years old and I make less money now than I ever made my life. Do you think that you need to be better educated to get a better paying job? Absolutely, absolutely need an education nowadays. Hey Ryan, what did you do? I'm a stock broker. That's what I've wanted to do ever since I was a kid. Okay, so you are the first person then yet other than I who's actually doing what I want to do for life. Yeah, this is what I want to do for a living and I'm having a great time doing. Listen to Cleveland talk radio and you hear more than one view of the American economy. Once a rust bucket, the city is now booming with new jobs and new stresses. That's something you see firsthand at places like Tower City Center. It's a thriving downtown complex that houses everything from a radio station to an international construction company to a posh hotel, a good place to survey a day in the life of the American workplace. This ornate Cleveland landmark was built in the 1930s. Not since that gilded age, the days of Rockefeller and JP Morgan has there been such a disparity between those who are

doing well and those who are stuck. This economy hasn't brought prosperity to everyone. And at Tower City Center, you find both the haves and the have-nots. From the corporate suites of construction for Morrison Knudsen, builders of the Hoover Dam in the Alaska Pipeline, things look pretty rosy. Well, I'm optimistic, quite frankly. I think that we are once again setting some standards for world business. I think a lot of the things American companies are doing are being revered around the world as good, strong practice and I think it sure is a land of opportunity. CEO Thomas Zarges can afford to be optimistic. He directs Morrison Knudsen's engineering branch. Here in more than a million dollars last year in total compensation. Not an uncommon figure for an American CEO. On average, CEOs now make 120 times more than the typical worker in their company. And the gap between those

at the top and the bottom is growing. Across the way from Morrison Knudsen, on the eleventh floor of the center's Ritz Carlton Hotel, Housekeeper Loretta Taylor makes a bit above the minimum wage. It's really depressing sometimes, but I'm really, I'm not advancing in the world. It's like I'm at a stair step and to move on and I think I should go back to school and to further my education. A single mother who lost her husband last year, she supporting her three-year-old son and her younger sister. She sees the way I'm struggling. So when I say her to stand school, go to college and she won't have it as bad as I am as a single mom trying to make bill to bill from paycheck to paycheck. The gap in America's paychecks isn't just between a hotel maid and a CEO. On the mezzanine across from the hotel, back at radio station WMMS, promotion director Jerome Anderson puts his college education to work. I've come a long way. My family has come a long

way. I was the first person in my family to get to go to college and hopefully I won't be the last. And you know, I just like to take things up a notch every time. What's the story with the kids got a lot? Jerome Anderson's father works maintenance. His mother, a secretary now, was once on welfare and his brother is struggling to get a job. My brother right now, he's looking for work. He's 21. He doesn't have a college degree in and the differences in the pay scale of the jobs that he's able to obtain and the jobs that I'm able to obtain is huge. So, you know, I do feel lucky that I have the education I have. In fact, that difference is huge and getting bigger. Family income for high school dropouts has fallen 10 percent. For college graduates, it's soared up 28 percent. Cleveland-based economist John Burke. 30 or 40 years ago was possible to get out of high school or drop out of high school. Get down to the local factory, perhaps a Ford plant or a Chrysler plant or GM plant and get a nice job with union protection, with good fringe benefits and a good wage and you

can become middle-class Americans and support a family and you could lead a pretty good life. But that era is gone in the rest belt and elsewhere and so are those sorts of jobs. In their place, jobs in finance, insurance, education, medicine, and other high-tech fields, technology has made workers more productive and more affluent. It's created the internet for everything from commerce to job searches and it's made companies more global. Well, we're working in China, in Thailand, in Vietnam, in Singapore. That global client list now numbers 25 and all, but despite that bright picture, more so canutes and got a jolt a few years ago when it faced bankruptcy. To save the business, divisions were sold off and costs were controlled. That experience helped convince Mailroom Supervisor Monica Barron that she ought to get better job skills. She's now studying at night to become a mechanical engineer. I think I could do this in my sleep now. I'm looking for something a little different,

maybe something a little better when I walk past those guys. Some days I walk past him and I think, I want to do that. You know, I just want to, when they're working on their CAD machines or whatever, they're working on their drawings and I think, I want to do that. And it's time for yet another sportscaster to audition one from the Cleveland area you want to step up to the microphone, my friend. We need someone who knows sports, who loves sports, who feel sports. And so we're just taking guys off the street. All right, so go ahead and give us some Cleveland sports. All right, the Indians came away from New York yesterday, totally unimpressed with Japanese import Hideki Araboot. So you kind of know sports, kind of, did it feel like it? What would you rate him, you guys? The peanut gallery now wants to decide. I thought he knew sports. No, I give him a seven, six and a half. All right, Corey, about six and a half. All right, I'd say about a seven or two. Round of applause. Want to be sportscasters with a seven rating, aren't the only job seekers feeling vulnerable in the New American workplace? Some experienced workers, like Mary Francis Duffy, once had well-paying jobs and haven't been able to find new ones in their field. She now makes 650 an hour in a gift shop on the center's lower level. I have probably submitted at least 100 resumes over the past months. I have received two

responses that have gone anywhere beyond. Thank you very much for your resume. Mary Francis Duffy isn't alone. In our poll, 70 percent of Americans say they have less job security than their parents. Nearly two-thirds say they have switched careers and millions are starting their own businesses. Romanian immigrate, Diana Dmitro, was a junior financial analyst for the Federal Reserve who changed careers to become the pastry chef at the Ritz Carlton. Now she's about to open her own gourmet crepe shop downtown. The current economic boom has helped make it possible. Since the economy has been going so well for the past few years, it's made it possible for me to save money, to be able to invest in the equipment that I need to open my own business. It's just an exciting thing. It's sort of following the American dream to have your own business.

It's the end of the working day at Tower City Center, eight hours of successes, drudgeries, possibilities. Some, like future business owner, Diana Dmitro, believe the American dream is alive and well. Others like Mary Francis Duffy and Housekeeper Loretta Taylor are less sure. For each of them, it all begins again tomorrow. Am I happy at work? Yes, and no, I can echo Cory's sentiments exactly. Okay, and tell us what. There are days when it is great and there are other days when I'm ready to quit. Well, don't you think that every job across America is like that, whether you're digging a ditch or you're in retail or whatever you're doing? And come tomorrow morning, many of those Tower Center workers will start the day the same way. Well, sit down at the breakfast table and open up the comics page to find this guy, Dilbert, whose workplace misadventures strike millions of readers as

early reminiscent of their own. That's probably because Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams, bases his strip on the true life adventures of his readers. He gets thousands of suggestions each week via email. Well, it looks like today we've got 1300 messages so far. Adams uses those tales of workplace weirdness and woes to create a world where your typical boss can't figure out how to use his laptop computer until Dilbert provides the necessary know-how. And Dilbert came and he took it and he held it up and he shook it and gave it back to him now working. And Dilbert and Wally walked away and said to each other, I wonder when he'll figure out that that was an etch of sketch. It's a world Adams knows well, having spent 17 years in a cubicle himself. I think I've I've breathed the air. I've I've felt the pain. So he asked God to help us create a workplace survival guide, a consulting role he took on with great relish. Well, I've always thought that having a business consultant who's never been

in a cubicle is is a bit like writing a book about the experience of the Donner party because you've eaten beef jerky once. But me, I've been in a cubicle for 17 years in my life so I've I've know it on a few ankles. With that resume in mind, here's Scott's survival tip number one. It's very important to learn how to get what you want out of the meeting, assuming that you're not just there to sleep. The technique that I use is the last suggestion technique and that involves waiting until everybody's had enough coffee that their bladders are about ready to break. And then you come up with the last suggestion when everybody's ready to break. That will always be accepted. More from Scott Adams and Dilbert later in the show and still ahead. I work for jobs. Change in the workplace. From Silicon Valley, the rising use of temporary and part-time workers. All the burden, all the risk that takes place within the economy is

exclusively borne by the temporary worker, by the contingent worker. And from Las Vegas, rallying to rebuild the union movement. Labor Day has its roots, of course, in the union movement. Union battles like the summer's UPS strike are about the very nature of the American workplace. But according to our new survey, Americans give today's unions a mixed review. Well, nearly two-thirds of unions play an important role in ensuring fair pay. Almost 70% say unions will have less power and influence in the years ahead. To reclaim that lost power and popularity, unions are now championing the cause of their lowest paid workers. It's a high-stake strategy, which makes the location of our next report that much more fitting. As Enrique Cernive reports, the union movement is now placing its bets in Las Vegas.

A hot summer day on the Las Vegas Strip. And feelings are running as high as the temperature. Union. Union. Union. Union. Union. Nearly 10,000 union members rally in front of the New York New York hotel in Casino. The rally's target is the ARC restaurant corporation. ARC is a non-union food service subcontractor for New York New York that pays its workers far below the union scale. We as ARC workers are going to fight until ARC either gives us a union contract or just a hell out of town. Las Vegas has always been a strong union town, culinary workers and other trade unions aimed to keep it that way. And so is the AFL-CIO, that national labor organization, has poured in manpower and more than $2 million into new organizing strategies.

Strategies that are the hopes will increase union membership throughout the country and well into the 21st century. That's what you find here. And according to national labor expert Harley Shaken, there's a lot on the line. The AFL-CIO has staked a lot in Las Vegas. They put money and organizers and resources into organizing the construction industry here, into supporting the culinary workers, into organizing and other areas. Las Vegas is already a major success story, but for organized labor nationally, it's a symbol of resurgence in the 1990s. In that sense, it's important. Las Vegas is America's premier boom town, fastest growing city in the country. It continues to draw huge numbers of people to its casinos,

and that's led to a hotel construction boom on the Vegas Strip. More jobs in the service industry, and more people moving to Las Vegas, and estimated 60,000 each year. As Las Vegas grows, so has opportunity. Opportunity that's usually rare for America's service workers. And it's then the living we have here in this town. Patty Canty is the president of Culinary Workers' Local, 226. So union success in Las Vegas is crucial to the potential success of the labor movement elsewhere. Well, works in Las Vegas will likely be tried in Seattle or San Francisco or New York. And from the point of view of unions in Las Vegas, if they lose one in subcontracting, if they lose one in organizing a new hotel, that could really spark a major response by employers that would cost them dearly. On contract updates.

With support from the AFL CIO, the unions are committing substantial sums of money to market research and new organizing tactics. For example, the Culinary Workers' Union spends about 40% of its budget on organizing. President Sweeney's mandate to the union movement as its top elected official is the labor movement must grow or it will die. And so he's putting his money where his mouth is. For the first time in the history of the labor movement, the AFL CIO is contributing its own funds to foster union organizing. The unions are also taking a personal approach through home visits. As far as I can see, Bertis Manual is a former arch employee who claims he was fired because of union activism. He now works for the Culinary Workers' Union as an organizer. He spends much of his time visiting arch workers as they battle for union recognition. Basically, it's to keep the workers strong because this is a very long and nasty fight.

I'm kind of concerned because of the baby. Bertis Manual is passionate about his organizing world. Without unions, he believes his wife Gina and their unborn child will have a tougher time achieving the American dream. Working for the arch corporation, at the time that I was working there, I was making 475 and I had an hour as a food server. I was having to pay $326 a month for my insurance benefits. I didn't have a guaranteed work week. I didn't have job security. You want peace in your life. I want to be able to sleep at night without worrying. Will I be able to provide for my family? But not everyone is so positive about unions. Hotel representatives declined to talk on camera. One contractor group had plenty to say. Everybody in our organization wants to run their business and conduct business without the union involvement in it.

Bill Decker is a Las Vegas contractor and a member of ABC, associated builders and contractors. It's a national organization that represents some 5,000 contractors in Nevada. But Decker says he and other contractors have been hard hit by a union tactic called salting. Salting is when you take a union member and get him hired onto a non-union shop and basically his purpose there is to create turmoil and cause havoc within that organization and that's what they do. Decker says the tactic places a huge financial strain on contractors. So much so that ABC is now offering salting insurance for its members. So do you see yourself in a fight here to preserve what you have? Absolutely. Any time that you have an organization like the AFVLCIO, spend the kind of money that they're anticipating spending here in Nevada,

ABC is really going to have to step up to the plate and help its members preserve our way of life. Who's got the power? There is much at stake here for both sides. Unions have a tough road to go today, but I think we have seen in the last year and a half a turning point. Unions are making a fight whether or not they'll succeed only the future will tell us. The Las Vegas struggle turns out we'll say a lot about the future of the union movement and the American workplace. And now a Labor Day quiz. Who said what serves labor serves the nation? George Mimi, Richard Nixon, or Abraham Lincoln.

The answer is Abraham Lincoln. Now here's more from Scott Adams on that's why they call it work. I recommend changing careers as often as possible because that'll loyalty thing they used to have. No more. I think if you've been on the job two, three days, that's plenty. Here again is Dave Iverson. When the teamsters went on strike at UPS, a union concern was the company's use of part-time employees, but disputes over the role of part-time and temporary workers are nothing new. In 1770, British Red Coast stationed in Boston made extra money by moonlighting. They were willing to work for less than local workers and on March 5th, fights broke out between the two factions, leading to the Boston massacre.

The first shots of the Revolutionary War were triggered in part over the question of temps. 227 years later, the use of temporary workers is once again revolutionizing the workplace as Shelley Coffler reports from California's Silicon Valley. While Silicon Valley fights rush hour traffic, Don Denman wakes to the kind of job most of us dream about. He seldom begins work before 10. His office is just a few steps from the breakfast table. This is where he did some of his best work for Apple Computer. While I was working for Apple, I had the luxury of making my own hours and so I would take a day off and go hang gliding or I would take a week off and go to Mexico. And so I was having a nice

quality of life. Don's computer programming skills are in such great demand. He turns down offers for full-time jobs. He makes more money going from project to project company to company. One of Don's newest clients is Power TV. Let's pour some champagne. This aggressive little company is celebrating three years of survival in the cutthroat working world of Silicon Valley. CEO Bo Rogers and his small staff of 28 are hoping to make their fortunes in the latest California gold rush. The rush to develop high technology. Silicon Valley has been out front in that battle for decades. And its companies have pioneered a new kind of workforce to compete. This is an example of Power TV's one of our applications.

At Power TV, for example, demand for its interactive television products is greater than the full-time staff can handle. That's where the Don Denmans of the world come in. Unlike full-timers, they get paid only for hours' work. No insurance, no retirement, no vacation pay. And they can be sent home if business slows down. I see this continually. I don't see the ability to grow your company to a huge size and keep that workforce fully employed with the ebbs and flows of technology. In fact, one-fourth of Roger Staff works part-time, temporary or on short-term contracts. They're part of what many call the contingent workforce. What I do like is the feeling of being free and able to move in a moment's notice. But whether the lives of these so-called contingents is prosperous or precarious is the subject of heated debate. The next economic downturn that

takes place in Silicon Valley, there will be no social safety net. There will be no safety net for contingent workers. Labor unions warn of a crisis in the making. The reason people should be concerned about what's happening in the Silicon Valley is that as goes Silicon Valley so goes America. Now, I have more than just a little bit of interest in what's going on here in Silicon Valley because I, too, am a contingent worker, an independent contractor. In the past two months, I've worked on news and programming for four different employers. By the way, the photographer who's shooting this story, he's an independent contractor, too. The audio technician is also an independent contractor and the editor who's putting this story together is an independent contractor as well. It's totally changed. You have lawyers now who work contingent. You have doctors who work contingent. You have people of PhDs who work contingent. Bob Lee is the regional director

of Manpower, which places more temporary workers worldwide than any other agency. He doesn't see a crisis on the horizon, just a new way of working. Because we're on the leading edge with new products and we got to get those products to market because it's a world competitive advantage, they use contingent labor to help them get those products to market. The explosion of contingent labor is the result of layoffs. Companies have stripped defying weight to compete globally. While this way of working is increasingly common throughout the country, some companies have sounded and alarmed. The Internet's Yahoo, for example, won't hire contingents for critical programming positions because they may lack the dedication of full-time employees. Intel is so worried about the theft of company's secrets, its contingent workers wear different colored badges and are barred from designing software.

He's got to put a notification out to the shareholders of what we're doing here. Even at PowerTV, all contingents are not created equal. They are seemingly divided into two classes, those without high-level technical skills and those like Don Denman, who have them. They're looking everywhere for programmers, so there's a lot of options for me. This is where Don Denman lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains and this is where you can afford to live as a contingent worker if you have some special technical skills. But if you don't have those skills, you probably live down there and your life is very different. I work four jobs and at times it's very frustrating because Eno Uta Uko works as a waitress and cashier. She often gets paged just hours before employers want her to come in.

Help the next person. Eno's story is startling. She says she has two bachelor's degrees and paralegal training but can't find full-time employment. She says her lack of computer skills holds her back. So she's taking classes at the community college in hopes she'll become more marketable. I would love to have a full-time job because number one, it would give my life some consistency. Eno is the kind of contingent worker unions are trying to organize. You don't need to be an economist to wake up in the morning, read the paper, go, the economy's booming and I don't get it. Is it not happening for me? Those two things together equal people are prepared to do battle. Amy Dean heads the AFL CIO in Silicon Valley. She wants to build her union's membership by pressing businesses into an agreement. We're just going to move straight into the agenda that deals with the whole question of establishing some kind of code of conduct

for temporary agencies in the valley as well as for the client companies that hire them. The idea here is to create a code of conduct that addresses worker concerns. When I looked into purchasing the health insurance, it was basically very expensive and the deductible was $2,000. The most frustrating thing is you could be ready to leave for work at 10 o'clock and they'll call you at 9 o'clock to say that you cancel. The union will encourage workers to boycott companies that won't sign its code of conduct. Frankly, I don't think it'll happen. But PowerTV's Bo Rogers believes that right now Silicon Valley jobs are so plentiful, few contingents have reason to unionize. What he may not realize, however, is that some of his own contingent workers are struggling. Insurance, medical insurance, that's my biggest concern. Cheryl Hallberg is the company's employee recruiter and a temporary. She loves her PowerTV job, but she's checking out full-time jobs because she needs the benefits.

I'm being paid quite a bit less because of that benefits equal anywhere from, I suppose, 22 upwards of 35 and more percent of your salary, so that's quite a chunk. At 51, Cheryl has no retirement and no health insurance through work. Even Don Denman, who seems to have it all, is having second thoughts. He's escaped the rat race, only to find he's also left the human race behind. I felt incredibly isolated here, lonely, and connecting with people is important not only from the spiritual side, but also technically. When I hit a roadblock and I'm stuck, I need to rely on my co-workers. So my strategy in part is to let them get to know me, see how valuable I can be to the company. Then Don says he may trade his mountaintop work retreat

and his contractors pay for something every worker wants, the sense of belonging that full-time employment can provide. Don Denman seems to sense that his work life will continue to evolve, that there's more to work than a paycheck. If you'd like to talk more about the role of work in your life and community, we're offering a free workplace discussion guide. It has suggestions for how to form discussion groups in your community and a list of workplace resources. More on how to get it at the end of the broadcast. With more on that's why they call it work. Here again is Scott Adams and Dilbert. Here's a little tutorial on office language. Basically the objective is to use the biggest words possible and to try to hide as much meaning as you can. So for example you would never use

the word use when you have this alternative utilize. Never use help when you've got facilitate in your bag and you want to stay away from two letter words like do when you've got a big conqueror like implement here. In my all-time favorite instead of job talk about your position in the value chain. Still ahead. National Public Radio's Ray Suarez reports on women refs in the NBA. We're not breaking through just because we're women. We're breaking through because we were good. But first, learning the work ethic on America's streets. To understand the importance of work to our country all you really have to do is consider what happens when it isn't there. In the depression 10 million Americans were out of work. Hooverville's and bread lines define the American landscape. Our primary task,

wrote Franklin Roosevelt, is to put people to work. Roosevelt's work projects administration and civilian conservation corps did just that for millions of Americans. Today on the back streets of our cities a few less celebrated efforts still survive. And as Joanne Garrett reports from Milwaukee the only thing that works is work itself. It's the kind of work that we're most of us would like to call in sick. Park it. Just stay home. A major day loop hits Milwaukee just before start time for this business. 7 30 a.m. Some workers have bagged it. Some, like Maddie Eccles, are more resolute. It's a commitment for me. I'm dedicated for my job. We're here for 11 months and I do 11 months I think I miss two days. For those who made it, the work day starts with group exercises.

Creating a scene that might be more common to Japanese companies. This is a unique workplace. It's the Milwaukee Community Service Corps, a not-for-profit business that employs some 90 young people who want to work. Young people ages 18 to 23. One, two, three, four, five. MCSC's business is work. Their job is to train their core members in the house of work, from basic skills to specialized trades. Well my career goal is, you know, me going into real estate and stuff like that because now I know what to look for in the inside of the house as well as the house side. I want to become a certified carpenter, you know, which, which I'm all most. Once I get my year in and get my duty,

I can, I'll be able to take my apprenticeship test. In five years, I see myself working with a contractor in about 10. I see myself doing my own construction, but it's hard. He's going to take a long time. I see that. The model of this business is what works best is work itself and it is work that creates a future. One step at a time. Tony Perez, the director of the Milwaukee Community Service Corps. I don't have any ultimate illusion that they're all going to take the job after they leave the corps and they're going to say, oh, you know, this is this is this is panacea. This is what I always wanted to have. No, it's a set of stepping stones. Stepping stones. The service corps program can trace its origin back to a national program, the civilian conservation corps, and a time when our country faced a very desperate future. During the depression, nearly 3 million

Americans passed through CCC camps employed on various public works projects. They worked the land, building trails and roads, protecting streams, fighting forest fires. The workers got a wage and training a way out. The country got their labor. The CCC is long gone, retired. But across the country, traces, testaments, really, of the programs still stand. In Milwaukee's Wittonville Park, these lagoons were dug out by the CCC. They built stone bridges and office building and this graceful rock garden. 60 years later, and citizens are still deriving benefit from that CCC labor. This is the heart of public works projects. This was a big job, a real big job. The Milwaukee Community Service Corps comes from this tradition of public work

creating public good. You can see it in this let-abatement project performed by MCSC under contract for HUD in a downtown home. Because of their work, this place is better for kids, better for the homeowner, better for the community. It's the kind of work that needs to get done, but very often doesn't. To truly get all the work done, it would be probably more than the value of this property as it is. So you have to find ways and you need to make the numbers work. And the young people here are making the numbers work. The Corps members started minimum wage. That makes the numbers work. And in return, they learn how to work. And not in some make-work job. Consider the members of this crew are working towards certification in carpentry, masonry, or concrete work. And they have all been trained and are now state certified

as let-abatement supervisors. The work is hard. It's a place for the determined. About two-thirds of those who start will finish this year-long program. But you've got to start from the bottom and work your way up. You just can't nobody just put you on the ladder and just hold you there. You've got to work climb up the ladder yourself. You've got to work for what you want. Your name's just going to come to you on the civil practice. But hard work yields results. This is a big day for this crew. They've spent a month on this job. It's their first let-abatement job and the let-inspector for the city of Milwaukee has come to inspect their work. The supervisors take in the assessment. Whoever scraped the blind stops did a good job of doing it. And a Corps member watches and learns. By the way, the house, the work, passes inspection. Work makes for change. Consider Hillside. Once one of Milwaukee's worst housing

projects, it has been rehab-fixed up, transformed. Hillside now has a waiting list. Thanks in part to the work done by MCSC, including this crew, a tight group that has earned and learned together, which Perez believes helps cement in a certain work stamina. You must have a sense of belonging to a group that is going to be counting on you and a light beer pressure, especially when it is unsolicited by the adult. To say to somebody, you know, you need to finish that project and we're going to have to be working late and we thought we're going to get out early or we're going to have the pizza that was going to give to us now a crew ex is going to win the pizza. Fine, you know, let it all play out. There was a couple of times, and I felt like just giving up, but now I want to do it. My crew went on to do a song and it's stick with it. Work stamina, sticking with it. This is the heart of the work ethic, how to make it

in the world of work. Rain's leaders know I'm going. Even I had to walk the work with too much strength because my vehicle was down and I walked to work every day and it was cold cold cold but I got there every day on time. No doubt. Every day. These are the habits of work and here are some of the results. David Millard, Colorado Johnson, will complete the year with certificates in concrete work and general construction. Maddie Ackles will over in those and her GED. Anthony Thomas is now a certified lead abatement supervisor. Beyond the rehab buildings, better neighborhoods. This is part of the legacy of public works. It's in the workers themselves. Now, another bit of workplace wisdom. I think there will be more outsourcing until eventually, all the work on the planet will be outsourced to one guy and we just hope that that one guy

doesn't get sick. The size of cubicles is shrinking every year and I'm predicting it will get so small it'll be the size of your head and you'll actually be able to wear it as like a helmet. I think the trend will be they'll continue decreasing until the only health benefits are one should get out of a vending machine in the hallway and that'll be okay until they start trying to increase revenues for the vending machine. Coming up next, breaking down workplace barriers. For some Americans, getting a job has also meant overcoming workplace obstacles whether be for reasons of race, nationality or gender. Usually those aren't stories that are a lot of fun but here's one that is. De-Cantner and Violet Palmer are trying to become the first female referees in the National Basketball Association. Now we're not sure why anyone would aspire to get

up close and personal with Dennis Rodman but if Violet and D do, Dennis, watch out. Here's national public radio's race war ends. For most of this century, the world of professional sports has been the planet of the guys. Guy athletes. Guy coaches. All carefully watched by, oh yeah, guys. Are you glad you live to see it change? Women are making a splash and they're even making a living playing round ball and now the NBA may be preparing to shake things up again. Just a few short months ago, the walls here at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City were rattling with the sounds of championship basketball but now in late summer it's quiet. Taking the floor are rookie players

and veterans but summer camp also gives the NBA a chance to take a look at its next generation of athletes. And this might be what the future looks like. Violet Palmer and D Cantner are in the pipeline to become the first women referees in the National Basketball Association. After working in the program, I said, wow, you know a light bulb went on and went, this actually may happen. When I first started officiating, I never even considered remotely that the NBA was the ultimate goal. There's a carefully controlled kind of optimism, a tightly wrapped excitement in these two women. They haven't made it yet but they are close. Officials for today's game are Dave Stewart Bob Tramble and Violet Palmer. Violet Palmer and D Cantner work in both the women's

NBA and the men's summer camp. They're at the very top echelons, just one goal remains, refing games that count in the guys NBA. If in the win a woman is hired into the NBA, it will be not because she's a woman but because she's the best prospect we think that we have to put in the lead. I think when you make a decision to be a referee, you definitely have to know that you can take a lot of abuse. You have to be a very confident person, you know, and you have to of course project that out on the basketball court because if you don't, then you will be chewed up and spit out. We still haven't perfected how to suck that air back out of the whistle. You put it in and you go, oh god, I didn't want to make that call but you've already done it. You get beat up. In a very real way, these two watch out for each other.

We're going along the same path. It's good that of course we're in a male dominant sport now and that we have the support of each other. You know, we can throw things off of each other. It's nice to go, whoa, you know, understand what I'm saying. She knows what I'm saying because she's also a woman. How's it working? Funny you should ask. I feel like if they can come in and they're capable of doing the job, it's equal opportunity. I think they've handed themselves well out here. I think they've shown that they can, you know, keep pace with the fast game. I really don't pay much attention to them. I think that the, I look at them just as I would look at a male referee. If they don't do a good job, probably a little more heat will be thrown upon them because they'll be easily recognized on the court. But there's one great unknown. The undisputed experts on the work of the refs, basketball fans.

What's the difference in the women doing the imbi? In fact, I think maybe it might clean up the actor, clean up the racks a little bit. We might not have any headbutting of women officials. I didn't notice her, so that must be a good sign, huh? When will all involved think these women are ready? Like women breaking through any barrier, in any job, they're ready to take on the planet of the gods. And I have fun out there most of the time, but there's also a line. And Ray, if you cross that line, my one eyebrow will go up and you'll see a look that says that's it. Put us on the court and watch us, and then you'll see. It's real clear cut. In our survey of the American workplace, we ask people to rate the quality is most crucial

to job success. Turns out it is an education or training or talent or even good luck. The quality people rate as the most critical is simple. It's the willingness to work hard. The work ethic helps define who we are as individuals and as a nation. No matter how much the workplace changes or markets get global, the way we work matters. writer Steve Roberts offers a personal look now at the American way of work. The work ethic, few phrases are more basic to this country's history or character. The first Puritan settlers preached the Protestant ethic, the idea that worldly success was a sign of salvation. Hard work was the Lord's work and Americans still believe that work transmits value. Space, as well as spirituality, inspired the American work ethic.

The new world offered room to exhale, expand, and excel. But American streets were never paved with gold, only opportunity to earn your own way. And that's one of the most important lessons we ever teach our children. Work hard we tell them. Whether it's a school assignment, a household chore, a part-time job. Every counselor who has tried to help people move from welfare to work says the same thing. The key is not special skills but ordinary habits. Getting up, getting out, getting it done. Even when work is dreary or dangerous, it shapes our identities. Many families, like mine, always seem to do the same things. From my great uncle, a newspaper editor in Russia, and my father, an author and publisher of children's books, I inherited my desire to be a writer. In my life, that desire to write and the work ethic itself was also nurtured by the old fashion apprenticeship system. My great mentor was a man named Scotty Reston, the Washington Bureau

chief of the New York Times, when I worked for him more than 30 years ago. Reston preached the virtues of diligence and discipline. Now, as a teacher, I tell young people they have one obligation to pass on the lesson Scotty Reston taught me. But no matter the strength of our work ethic, we aren't always protected from the forces creating change and anxiety in the world of work. Technology has eliminated some professions altogether. The newspaper trades of my youth have been replaced by computers. No more line of type machines and no more line of type operators. Emerging markets and merging companies, expanding competition and shrinking computers. No wonder seven out of ten workers say they have less security and more stress than a generation ago. And I know some of those stresses firsthand. I had always assumed I'd work for one company my whole career. When I left the New York Times after 25 years, it took me months to stop introducing

myself as a New York Times reporter. That title was part of me. I've worked for many bosses since then. And like other older workers, I've heard a new manager say those dread words, you'd better look for another job. For these reasons, a growing number of American workers define themselves by the skills they possess, not the companies they work for. Corporate labels and owners may change. A worker's heart inhabits, do not. 377 years after the Puritans arrived on Plymouth Rock, the work ethics still flourishes in the land they helped create. But the work ethic was never just about personal salvation. It's always been about community as well, extending a hand, expanding opportunity. On Labor Day, we celebrate work as a gift we give others. That's the true meaning of the work ethic. I'm Dave Iverson. Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day evening. After all, tomorrow, we all go back

to work. Good night. State of the Union is produced with the participation of USA Today and National Public Radios Talk of the Nation. That's why they call it work. Funding for this program has been made possible by the Pew Charitable Trust,

the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the annual financial support of viewers like you. The Democracy Project To further explore the role of work in our lives and communities, call for a free state of the Union Workplace Discussion Guide. The number is 1-800-253-1158 or write to the address on your screen.