This paper provides background information for a seminar discussion about basic skills integration in the workplace. It is intended to frame major policy questions for participants. The chief mission of the seminar's sponsoring organization is to develop a common framework among public agencies, private employers, and unions to discuss policies that will improve practice; hence the seminar will examine how to improve program design, assessment, curriculum, and performance objectives. The nine issues specifically raised for discussion are the following: skills needed in the workplace, training adults for the workplace, designing programs to improve workplace skills, knowing what skills workers possess, strategies for instruction for workplace skills, transferability of basic skills, the situation as it exists today, developing accountability across systems, and key issues for states (state policy issues, improving the knowledge base, priority research issues). Each of the nine issues is reviewed in a separate section, and each section concludes with a set of discussion questions relevant to that issue. Thirty-two references are included in the paper. (KC)