The experience of a number of specific local workplace programs indicates a definite connection between the provision of employee basic skills programs and increased worker productivity. One Tennessee company, for example, reports a 95 percent drop in costs resulting from worker mistakes and a doubling of worker productivity since the company adopted an aggressive education and training program. A study by the American Society for Training and Development found that over half the productivity increases occurring in the United States between 1929 and 1989 were due to learning on the job and that persons given formal workplace training have a 30 percent higher productivity rate. A report of the Bureau of Business Practice indicates that the Manufacturing Literacy Program and Motorola University training courses of Motorola, Inc., have resulted in a productivity rate equal to 500 percent of its original estimates, a 30:1 reduction in manufacturing cycle time, a 4:1 reduction in defects per unit, and a 2.5:1 reduction in inventory. (This brief contains extracts of nine documents detailing the specific effects of basic skills training on worker productivity along with information on the availability and cost of each publication.) (MN)