China’s Unfair Trade Puts U.S. Auto Parts Jobs at Risk
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More than 1.6 million American jobs in the nation’s auto supply chain are at risk unless China’s illegal trade practices are curtailed, according to three new reports released today. In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said:
China is cheating unmercifully in this sector and we are saying to China—and asking our government to stand up to China and say—“enough is enough.” It is time to enforce our trade policies.
Two reports from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and one from Stewart and Stewart, a law firm that has won cases challenging China’s unfair trade practices, detail China’s persistent and growing violations of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and outline plans by China’s government to use these same tactics to boost their auto parts exports even further.
In the past 10 years alone, China’s auto parts exports to the United States have increased by 850 percent, while jobs in the parts industry declined by more than 400,000. Says Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM): Read the rest of this entry »
This Is So Cool!
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You’ve got to check this out…it’s meant for kids, but, really, how can you go wrong at a website that rocks noisy engine revs, animated potato chips and full-color awesomeness?
It’s a new site, ManufacturingIsCool.com, and it’s the definition of fun-while-learning.
Produced by the Society for Manufacturing Engineers, the site uses an interactive “desk” to send kids on a journey through everything from how paper, Pringles and bike helmets are made, to the ins and outs of building a concept car—and way, way beyond.
Our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) sent us the link, and we agree—it’s great to get kids excited about manufacturing. AAM is a partnership of the United Steelworkers and a group of leading manufacturers with a mission to strengthen manufacturing in the United States.
Report: China Rigs Subsidies, Manipulates Currency
Dave Johnson, a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future, sends us this.
The new U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report on China should be a “wake-up call” for the United States, says Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). Click here to read the full report and here for a comprehensive list of the commission’s recommendations beginning on page 355 of the report.
In sum: China is rigging trade using subsidies and currency manipulation, has barriers to bringing in U.S. goods and is forcing American companies to hand over proprietary technology. The result is our huge trade deficit is getting even worse. China also is acting more like it could become a national security threat.
This bipartisan commission was created by Congress in 2000 “to monitor, investigate and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.”
Some key excerpts:
AAM’s Job Search Tracks Candidates’ Jobs, Manufacturing Statements, Promises
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Our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) have just launched Job Search, a new online tracking tool to keep up-to-date tabs on what Republican presidential candidates and President Obama are saying about and proposing to do to solve the nation’s jobs crisis and fix the economy.
The goal of Job Search is to provide a comprehensive repository of statements these candidates have made about the issues Americans care about the most—jobs and the economy.
How would Mitt Romney’s 59-point jobs plan affect manufacturing? Has Rick Perry’s record as governor of Texas been too friendly to Chinese state-owned companies? Is President Obama living up to his campaign promises on creating a level playing field for America’s workers? Did any of the Republican candidates even mention the word “manufacturing” during the recent GOP presidential debates? Find out on Job Search.
Be sure to check back often—Job Search will scan candidates’ speeches, statements, tweets and media appearances daily and will record everything they say about manufacturing and jobs.
Jobless Rate Worsens to 9.1 Percent with Anemic Job Growth
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The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent in May, a slight increase from April’s 9 percent rate, according to the latest government figures. The monthly payroll survey shows the economy added just 54,000 net jobs overall last month, down from the average 220,000 in the previous three months. While the private sector added 83,000 jobs, even that anemic growth was tempered by disappearing government jobs. Local government employment has dropped by 446,000 since its peak in September 2008.
Today’s numbers follow Wednesday’s announcement that the week ending May 28 was the eighth straight week that more than 400,000 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits.
Manufacturing saw a loss of 5,000 jobs, after April’s addition of 29,000. Overall, there has been a small net gain of manufacturing jobs after hitting a low-point in December 2009. Since January 2010, the United States has added back roughly 243,000 manufacturing jobs through last month. But there is still a net loss of more than 800,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2009.
Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), says:
This slowdown shows that we cannot take growth in manufacturing for granted. Our nation urgently needs a jobs and manufacturing strategy, yet it is nowhere on the agenda of this Congress. We have put together a business-labor plan that enjoys broad support from voters. Now we hope Washington will start to listen. We will never rebuild our economy without strengthening manufacturing in our nation.
Play Ball!
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With Major League Baseball’s 2011 season under way, our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing remind us that the all-American pastime still features some Made-in-USA sports gear.
Rawlings has been making baseball gloves since 1887. Despite diversifying overseas, Rawlings’ pro model and custom gloves are still made in Washington, Mo.
You can do what the pros do and have your glove tailor-made to your exact specifications at Rawlings’ Missouri factory.
You can’t have a ball game without a bat, so get a good grip on a Louisville Slugger. The wooden bats are crafted by members of the United Steelworkers (USW) at the company’s home in Louisville, Ky. The aluminum bats are produced in Ontario, Calif., by members of the Teamsters (IBT).
Bipartisan Bill Calls for National Manufacturing Strategy
During the past decade, 5.5 million American manufacturing jobs have disappeared, mostly due to bad trade and tax policies that encourage U.S. companies to move jobs overseas. Further fueling job loss has been the global economic crisis and lack of a comprehensive national manufacturing strategy.
Yesterday, U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) introduced legislation requiring the development of such a strategy. Says Brown:
If we’re going to out-compete and out-innovate other countries, it will require a national manufacturing strategy. The United States has been without one, and our economy has paid the price.
Scott Paul, executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), says the United States is the only industrial nation in the world without a cohesive manufacturing strategy.
To rebuild our manufacturing base and create good middle-class jobs, our federal government needs to deploy a coordinated set of trade, tax, training, procurement, and investment policies.
The bill—the National Manufacturing Strategy Act of 2011—would require the secretary of commerce to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the nation’s manufacturing sector and submit to Congress a National Manufacturing Strategy to increase manufacturing jobs, identify emerging technologies to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, and strengthen the manufacturing sectors in which the United States is most competitive. Says Kirk:
AFL-CIO and Chamber Agree on Obama’s Call for Infrastructure Rebuild
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Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue issued a rare joint statement supporting “Obama’s call to create jobs and grow the U.S. economy through investment in our nation’s infrastructure.” Trumka and Donohue said:
Whether it is building roads, bridges, high-speed broadband, energy systems and schools, these projects not only create jobs and demand for businesses, they are an investment in building the modern infrastructure our country needs to compete in a global economy.
With the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO standing together to support job creation, we hope that Democrats and Republicans in Congress will also join together to build America’s infrastructure.
Last night, Trumka said that many of the economic plans President Obama outlined in his State of the Union message showed he “was heading in the right direction” to restoring the health of the economy and the middle class.
Here are some other reactions. Click here to read Trumka’s full statement.
Obama’s call to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure—which Obama described as at the core of “winning the future”—upped the ante in the debate about investing in the nation’s crumbling transportation system and infrastructure, says AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) President Edward C. Wytkind.
President Obama is in complete agreement with transportation labor in saying that America can no longer afford to fall behind China—with its “faster trains and newer airports”—and the rest of the world in investing in the movement of people, goods and information. He said our infrastructure used to be the best—”but our lead has slipped.” And he talked about the need to “redouble” our efforts to use strategically significant investments to create good jobs. Needless to say, we agree.
Obama’s Wisconsin Visit: Good Time to Push for Industrial Revitalization
This is a cross-post from the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
President Obama travels to Manitowoc, Wis., this afternoon. In Wisconsin, he’ll no doubt encounter a lot of struggling paper mills (along with workers who’ve been laid off from those mills). This is a result of unfair competition from China’s heavily subsidized paper industry.
An AAM report in 2009 found that the Chinese paper industry has tripled production over the past decade, costing tens of thousands of jobs throughout the U.S. paper industry and increasing the massive U.S. trade deficit with China.
Along with paper, manufacturing has traditionally been Wisconsin’s strongest employment sector, above even farming. More recently, however, Wal-Mart has been Wisconsin’s top employer.
Bad Omens on the Eve of U.S.-China Chat
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Several disturbing items out now as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner gets set to meet next week with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
At a time when our nation has a massive jobs deficit and an urgent need to catch up with other nations that are moving ahead of the United States in green industries, the Alliance for American Manufacturing notes today that Evergreen Solar, a maker of solar panels in Devens, Mass., is closing a factory that employs 800 people. The company says it can’t compete with cheap Chinese solar panels.
Evergreen Solar is just the tip of the iceberg, as demonstrated by the Alliance’s next news note:
In 2011, the U.S. is poised to lose its 110-year run as the world’s leader in factory production to China. China’s economy surged ahead of Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second largest. While the U.S. remains the largest by gross domestic product, analysts predict that the U.S. risks losing that position by 2025—if not sooner. China has moved into the #2 position in the publication of biomedical research articles.
