Time Running Out to Rebuild the U.S Economy
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The unwillingness of political leaders to act boldly for the nation’s economic future has put our prosperity in danger, and it’s past time to do something about it, union leaders and lawmakers said today.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) told the closing session of the Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., that other nations, especially India and China, have made a huge commitment to rev up development of efficient energy sources and threaten to leave the United States in the dust. Said Rendell:
Time is running out. The science and technology are there, but do we have the will? The time of American economic dominance is fast disappearing. If we have an America that doesn’t make anything, then we become a second- or third-rate power.
Rendell, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) made up the final panel for the conference.
Manufacturing Crucial for Building New Economy
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Over the next decade, America is poised to invest $2 trillion in infrastructure, health care and a greener economy, but that money must be invested strategically to build a new economy, not just retool the current model, which is not working.
Speaking this morning at the Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the global economic collapse requires us to think of long-term strategies to rebuild and restructure our economy, with a revitalized manufacturing sector at its core.
The one-day conference, sponsored by the Institute for America’s Future and the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), is bringing together political, business, environmental and union leaders and economists to discuss the fundamental changes needed to create an economy that provides sustainable long-term growth and creates across-the-board prosperity.
Let’s Foment a Green Industrial Revolution
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Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, is among several key speakers at the Building the New Economy conference Oct. 29 in Washington, D.C. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also is among the keynote speakers. Here Gerard describes why we need a 21st century green manufacturing revolution.
We need to foment a new American industrial revolution—specifically, a 21st century burgeoning of green manufacturing in the United States.
Americans going green—manufacturing windmills and solar cells—would benefit both the economy and the environment. As the Wall Street debacle that pushed this country into the Great Recession last year showed, the United States cannot depend on trading in obscure financial products to support its economy. To survive, America must be able to manufacture products of intrinsic value that can be traded here and internationally.
China and the U.S. Housing Bubble
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We often write about how China’s policy to devalue its currency, the yuan, has been a key factor in the U.S. trade deficit.
It’s not an easy issue to grasp. But economist Paul Krugman devotes an entire column to explaining why China’s devalued currency has such ramifications for our country. Here’s Krugman:
If supply and demand had been allowed to prevail, the value of China’s currency would have risen sharply. But Chinese authorities didn’t let it rise. They kept it down by selling vast quantities of the currency, acquiring in return an enormous hoard of foreign assets, mostly in dollars, currently worth about $2.1 trillion.
Many economists, myself included, believe that China’s asset-buying spree helped inflate the housing bubble, setting the stage for the global financial crisis. But China’s insistence on keeping the yuan/dollar rate fixed, even when the dollar declines, may be doing even more harm now.
Read the entire column here.
USW Workers Ratify Goodyear Contract Covering 10,300 Workers
The United Steelworkers (USW) announced that workers overwhelmingly ratified a new four-year agreement covering some 10,300 union members at seven Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. plants. The new pact provides job security and maintains quality, affordable health care for the union members.
The agreement also protects six of the seven plants from closure during the term of the agreement and provides for minimum staffing levels. As part of the deal, Goodyear committed to invest $600 million in capital expenditures in the plants, keeping them up to date and globally competitive.
USW President Leo Gerard said:
During this difficult economic period, this contract gives our members job security for the next four years.
AFL-CIO Delegates Applaud Trade Case Victory
This is a cross-post from the United Steelworkers (USW).
Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh jumped to their feet and roundly applauded this morning when USW International President Leo W. Gerard announced a Steelworker victory in a major trade case against China.
Acting on a case filed last April by the USW under Section 421 of U.S. trade laws, President Obama has decided to impose punitive tariffs on all car and light truck tires coming into the United States from China. He made the announcement late Friday and signed the proclamation on Sunday.
“For the first time in 20 years, we have a president who stood up to enforce the laws that have been robbing workers of their jobs,” Gerard said to applause from the delegates.
USW President: AFL-CIO Convention Opportunity to Rally Activists
This is a cross-post from the United Steelworkers.
United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard today gave the keynote speech at the Union Label & Service Trades Department convention in Pittsburgh, saying the meeting along with the upcoming AFL-CIO convention is an opportunity.
Gerard said working families should be hopeful after President Obama’s decision last night to enforce trade rules in the 421 trade case that showed a flood of tires imported from China was harming the domestic industry. Thousands of jobs at U.S. tire plants have been lost because of the imports. (Click here for more information on the 421 story.)
Obama Enforces Trade Laws on China Tire Imports
President Obama took decisive action yesterday to provide relief to the domestic consumer tire industry in response to surging exports of tires from China. His actions will bring relief to many workers and their families and reverse course after eight years of neglect of trade laws by the Bush administration.
In July, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled in favor of a United Steelworkers (USW) petition filed under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974. The ITC found that tariff relief was needed to urgently reduce the negative impact of those tire imports. Obama’s decision imposes an increased duty on tires from China for three years. The duties are 35 percent in the first year, then 30 percent and 25 percent in each of the following years.
‘The Last Truck’: HBO Looks at Plant Closing Through Workers’ Eyes
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Just two days before Christmas 2008, workers at the General Motors assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, watched their livelihood and the lifeblood of their town dry up as their plant shut its doors for good. A new HBO documentary, “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant,” which first airs on Labor Day, offers poignant personal testimony about the impact of the decline of American auto manufacturing on this tight-knit Ohio community.
While the layoffs of the 2,500 workers and 200 management staff was bad enough, thousands more of their friends, neighbors and family would lose their jobs as businesses that serviced the plant—suppliers, restaurants, retail stores—were forced to close for lack of business.
In the documentary, “Popeye,” a toolmaker, simply states what the decline of manufacturing means to him and to the American Dream:
My grandson will have a worse life than I had.
HBO’s press release about the documentary points out the real extent of the damage from the closing:
…the GM workers lost much more than jobs, including the pride they share in their work and the camaraderie built through the years. To the natives of Moraine and the greater Dayton area, General Motors wasn’t just a car company—it was the lifeblood of the community.
USW Tells China to Stop Treading on U.S. Tire Makers
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Chinese tire makers are treading on the U.S. tire industry, dumping more than 46 million low-cost tires into this country last year alone to be sold in stores like Wal-Mart, among others. The result, unfortunately, is all too familiar: Cheap imports = lost jobs and shattered communities.
The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents most of the U.S. tire workers, is demanding that the Obama administration act forcefully to restore a balanced trading field. The union wants the administration to impose tough tariffs on Chinese tires for at least three years.
Last month, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) ruled in favor of a USW petition filed under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974. The USITC found that tariff relief was needed to urgently reduce those tire imports. Evidence showed that more than 5,100 domestic consumer tire production jobs were lost between 2004 and 2008 by the flood of Chinese tire imports that undersold producers in the United States. Domestic tire companies have announced they will close more plants and eliminate another 3,000 jobs by the end of this year.
