The other day I posted Whirlpool Bites Hands Of American Taxpayers That Feed It saying, in summary,

• Whirlpool closes a plant in Evansville
• Taxpayers will shoulder the unemployment and other costs.
• All the local supplier, transportation and other third-party jobs are destroyed.
• Even more home foreclosures in the area as a result.
• Local businesses are stressed or have to go out of business.
• They are playing nearby Iowa against Indiana for tax breaks and subsidies to keep just a few of the jobs.
• Whirlpool is profiting from making all this someone else’s problem.
• And, of course, Wall Street celebrates the move.

A Whirlpool spokesperson responded, leading to the post, Whirlpool Exec Responds: The System Made Us Do It, taking a look at the bigger picture that forces our companies like Whirlpool to do these things that destroy people, communities and our economy,

“The spokesperson for Whirlpool is exactly right. It is the system that makes them do this. They are only following the market’s orders.”

I thought that was the end of it, but whoa, what’s this? Whirlpool Threatens Workers: Protesting Plant Closure Risks ‘Future Jobs’

A major corporation planning to shut down a factory in Indiana has warned its union workers that they’ll endanger their future job prospects if they protest the plant’s closing.

. . . Activists planned a high-profile protest for this Friday, with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka visiting the plant for the first time. But Whirlpool says the effort is futile — they are fully committed to shutting the plant down. The company, however, still seems quite wary of the potential for bad publicity. In a memo sent to its employees and passed along to the Huffington Post, Paul Coburn, division vice president for Whirlpool’s Evansville Division, offers a fairly explicit warning to his workers: If they join Trumka’s protest they would seriously risk future employment opportunity.

Threatening workers who show up at the protest that they risk future employment? Click through to read the entire report and to see Whirlpool’s letter.

And take action: Tell Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America and Save Our Jobs.

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This post originally appeared at the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF).

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Johnson also is a fellow at the Commonweal Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Renewal of the California Dream.

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Follow Dave Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcjohnson

Mike Elk

By Mike Elk
Of Campaign for America’s Future

Conservatives have started a disturbing pattern of attacking Democrats for the consequences of weak Buy America provisions in last year’s Recovery Act, even though they opposed the tougher Buy America provisions that would have averted the problems in the first place.

Last week, I wrote about how Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele launched this Republican talking point:

… Steele blasted the Obama administration in a fund-raising email earlier this week for allowing stimulus money designated for clean energy solutions to be spent on overseas companies. Which is interesting, because stimulus money going to overseas firms was the direct result of conservative opposition to attempts to keep that money in America.

Now it seems that Sarah Palin has joined the chorus of flip-flopping conservatives opposed to Buy America, who ignore the fact that progressive Democrats were fighting for Buy America language in the stimulus. Palin wrote on her Facebook wall:

“We were promised it would provide “green jobs” for Americans, but 80% of the $2 billion they spent on alternative energy went to purchase wind turbines built in China!”

While some of the money did go to foreign companies to spend on windmill components built overseas, a lot of that money went to the U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign companies. Russ Choma, author of the study which Palin cites, rebuts Palin in this Politifact article:

The Investigative Reporting Workshop’s story on stimulus dollars and the wind industry came in two parts. In October 2009, it published its first analysis. The group found that of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants already handed out by the Department of Energy, about 84 percent — or $849 million — ended up in the hands of foreign wind companies. We spoke with Russ Choma, the story’s author, who explained that these grants are given to U.S.-based wind projects, but that many of these projects are being built by the American subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies. For instance, on Sept. 22, 2009, the DOE awarded $464.2 million to wind projects, and all of it went to local subsidiaries of foreign companies, according to the report. Those companies include Iberdrola, a Spanish company that received $250.9 million; the American subsidiary of Japan’s Eurus Energy, which got $91.3 million; and the American subsidiary of Germany’s E.ON Group, which received $121.9 million. Choma also points out that the wind turbine manufacturing industry in the United States is relatively weak compared to those abroad; of the 1,807 turbines erected in the United States as a result of the stimulus grants, foreign-owned manufacturers made 1,219, according to the report.

Besides Palin misrepresenting the facts, Palin fails to note that her fellow conservative Republicans opposed Buy America language, labeling it“bad for America.”

As I noted last week:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain went on CBS’s Face the Nation on February 8, 2009:

“I think it has policy changes in it which are fundamentally bad for America. For example, their ‘Buy America’ provision: that’s protectionism, and that did not work in any time in our history.”

As recently as October 2009, GOP Congressional leaders held an event to call for the rollback of Buy America provisions claiming that Buy America provisions were “costing American jobs.”

This is just another example of Republicans obfuscating their positions in order to win votes. But what’s disturbing is that there is a margin of truth in what they say. Because Buy America provisions were weak in the stimulus bill, some of the money (though not as much as Palin claims) did go overseas. It happened because Democrats failed to put up a strong enough fight.

That can’t happen again. As Congress considers a jobs bill, it’s important that we encourage members not to compromise on Buy America provisions. If Democrats allow Buy America to be weakened, conservatives will use the result to attack them anyway. They should instead force Republicans into a real, round-the-clock filibuster Buy America language. That will show just how patriotic conservatives are when its comes to using American taxpayer money to give Americans jobs.

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President 

It turns out a Texas windmill farm developer’s request last month for nearly half a billion in stimulus funds to create 2,000 jobs in China doesn’t rank first on the audacity scale.

Shockingly for American taxpayers, and sadly for the staggering 10.2 percent of Americans who are unemployed, it doesn’t even rank second.

That’s because Washington already has doled out hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to foreign renewable energy firms. Of the $1.05 billion in clean energy grants awarded by D.C., $849 million — 84 percent — went to foreign wind companies, according to an analysis by Russ Choma of the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He wrote:

“The cash grants were given for the installation of 1,763 megawatts of capacity – 1,566 installed by foreign companies. Using the Renewable Energy Policy Project’s own numbers, as many as 4,500 manufacturing jobs may have been created overseas.”

A strong, broad Buy American clause in the stimulus bill could have prevented the off-shoring of U.S. tax dollars intended to create jobs for unemployed Americans. My union, the United Steelworkers, and the AFL-CIO pushed hard for that language, and polls showed 86 percent of Americans supported it. Republicans and lobbyists for multi-national corporations that wanted to spend U.S. tax money overseas opposed Buy American provisions.

Congress adopted weak, limited Buy American language. Now D.C. exports stimulus dollars to create jobs in foreign countries.  

Some of the foreign wind firms that got stimulus funds have American subsidiaries. But most of them shipped major components for wind farms to the U.S. That means  American stimulus dollars employed foreign workers. One Spanish company, Iberdrola S.A., got $545 million from U.S. taxpayers. 

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, denounced the request to use U.S. tax dollars to create jobs in China and demanded the Obama administration deny funding. But it’s too late for the $849 million in stimulus dollars already given away to foreign wind companies. American tax dollars, meant to create jobs and nurture a green energy industry in the U.S., are gone with the wind.

Lavishing stimulus funds on foreign businesses is tragic for another reason:  Those overseas companies are competitors to fledgling U.S. firms that were supposed to get the money. President Obama has said he wants the U.S. to be “the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy.” That’s not going to happen if the U.S. pays European and Chinese manufacturers to import wind turbines. 

Congress set aside at least $3 billion in the stimulus bill for renewable energy projects. That investment would have two benefits. Growth in renewable energy – from sources such as windmills and solar cells – could reduce dangerous pollution from burning fossil fuels. In addition, the Blue Green Alliance estimated in its report, “Building the Clean Energy Assembly Line,” that U.S. manufacturers could create 850,000 jobs if Congress adopted a national standard requiring 25 percent of electricity to be generated with renewable sources by 2025. 

The key, obviously, is that the wind turbines and solar cells constructed to meet that standard couldn’t be imported for the jobs to be created in the U.S. The U.S. industry, however, needs the kind of help foreign governments give their clean energy manufacturers. The Blue Green Alliance report notes:

“Without new policies promoting domestic manufacturing, an unnecessarily large portion of these jobs will remain overseas.”

Keith Bradsher of the New York Times in a July 13 story described China’s policy to protect and promote its renewable energy industries: “China is shielding its clean energy sector while it grows to a point where it can take on the world.” That includes, Bradsher recounted, a competition last spring where China disqualified all foreign bidders on technicalities for 25 contracts to supply wind turbines. Beijing then awarded the contracts to seven Chinese companies, including some that had never built a turbine.

There’s no reason except a desire to shoot itself in the foot for the U.S. not to protect and promote its own renewable energy industries. “The Building the Clean Energy Assembly Line” report provides recommendations for Congress to cultivate American renewable energy industries, including long-term investment tax credits,  adopting a national standard requiring a minimum percentage of electricity be generated through renewable energy, passing cap and trade legislation, and providing low-interest financing.  

After the Texas windmill incident, I wrote Sen. Schumer asking for bold action to support U.S. clean energy manufacturing. In the letter copied to all members of Congress, I told him we must expand and accelerate the availability of incentives for manufacturing wind turbines and other clean energy technologies – here, in the U.S. One important way to do that is for Congress to extend to the manufacture of components like turbines the funding incentives that are now provided for production of clean energy.

Clearly, another method would be to Buy American. When constructing a wind farm in Texas, why would taxpayers give their money to support importing the turbines from China or Spain when there are perfectly good turbine manufacturers here in the U.S.? 

The Texas windmill farm developer announced this week that its Chinese partner plans to construct a $50 million turbine factory in the U.S., according to a story in the New York Times.  But that facility won’t supply the turbines for the project that the partnership wants $436 million in stimulus funds to support. Those would come from China. So, in the end, it still means nearly half a billion in U.S. tax dollars would create 2,000 turbine-building jobs in China.  

When China passed its $600 billion economic stimulus bill this summer, it adopted “Buy China” provisions. Obviously, as far as wind turbines were concerned, it was implementing a “Buy China” policy before that.

Is the U.S. going to continue thwarting itself and tilting at windmills or is it going to adopt and enforce a robust Buy American policy and build some?

Leo W. Gerard

 

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

Taking candy from a baby: A consortium of Chinese and American companies goes to Washington and announces plans to build a $1.5 billion windmill farm in West Texas using $450 million in U.S. Stimulus funds, which will create 2,330 jobs – 2,000 of them in China.  

The baby – Washington — doesn’t cry or whine or spit in the consortium’s face. That’s what’s really wrong with this story.

So accustomed to being bought and sold, Washington simply begins processing forms so it can hand over your tax dollars to create jobs in a turbine factory in the city of Shenyang, China at a subsidy of $193,133 each. 

It’s like these bureaucrats live in Wonderland. Or an America where the unemployment rate isn’t 10.2 percent. Or where 40,000 American manufacturing facilities didn’t disappear in the past decade. Or where banks didn’t repossess nearly a quarter million American homes in the past three months. 

We’ve got a message for Washington: Hell no! We’re not giving tax dollars to China. What’s wrong with these businesses and our government? It is the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It’s not the Chinese Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

It’s bad enough that we’ve off-shored our factories and technology and jobs over the past 20 years.  We’re not off-shoring our Stimulus cash too. In fact, we’re tired of serving as the schoolyard wimp of the world. We need our own industrial policy so we can stand up and compete in the world market manufacturing the likes of wind turbines. And we need it now. 

China has an industrial policy. And it uses that policy to dominate.  Here is how Keith Bradsher of the New York Times described China’s policy to become a world leader in renewable energy, which of course, would include construction of wind turbine factories:

“Calling renewable energy a strategic industry, China is trying hard to make sure that its companies dominate globally. Just as Japan and South Korea made it hard for Detroit automakers to compete in those countries – giving their own automakers time to amass economies of scale in sheltered domestic markets – China is shielding its clean energy sector while it grows to a point where it can take on the world.”

China protects its chosen industries in many ways. It provides low interest loans, some of which don’t have to be repaid. It may give free land on which to construct buildings. And there are other perks that Bradsher described:

“When the Chinese government took bids this spring for 25 large contracts to supply wind turbines, every contract was won by one of seven domestic companies. All six multinationals that submitted bids were disqualified on various technical grounds, like not providing sufficiently detailed data. . . even as Chinese companies that had never built a turbine were approved. . .”

Later, Bradsher describes European disgust at the Chinese treatment:

“European wind turbine makers have stopped even bidding for some Chinese contracts after concluding that their bids would not be seriously considered, said Jorg Wuttke, the president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.”

China has a policy. It ruthlessly protects its own industries.

China was among the many countries that complained bitterly when the U.S. included “Buy American” provisions in the Stimulus Bill. In fact, Vice Commerce Minister Jiang Zengwei told a press conference in Beijing in February that China would not do such a thing, “We won’t practice a ‘Buy China’ policy,” he said. Four months later, that’s exactly what China did, instituting its own, stricter “Buy China” policy as part of its economic stimulus program.

China did what China felt was necessary for its economy. And it ignored foreign criticism.

That’s hardly the U.S. tactic. Wilting under criticism, Congress diminished the Buy American provisions before passing the Stimulus.

As a result, we’ve got a consortium — U.S. Renewable Energy Group, Cielo Wind Power and A-Power Energy Generation Systems – so bold that it believes it can get nearly half a billion dollars in American Stimulus money for 2,000 Chinese wind turbine jobs. The consortium says it would import 240 Chinese turbines to Texas where 300 temporary construction jobs would be created and another 30 permanent jobs established.

The wind turbines could easily be made in the USA. Bradsher, of the Times, says the Chinese concede that while their turbines cost slightly less initially, they have higher repair costs. He wrote, “United Nations data from trading of carbon credits shows that the Chinese-brand turbines produce less electricity because they are more frequently out of action.”

Really, is that what we want to buy with American tax dollars for a wind farm in West Texas?

If the United States put half the effort into supporting its renewable energy industry that China does, there’d be no way this consortium building windmills in Texas would be looking overseas for turbines.

China has a plan. In its strategy, it doesn’t consider America first or the remainder of the world first. And that’s what the USA must do. We need an industrial policy that makes no apologies for putting America and American workers first. And when that’s the calculus, no American official would ever countenance a request to give $450 million in American taxpayers’ dollars to a turbine factory in China. And no American consortium would consider making such a stupid request.   

In the meantime: Hell no! They don’t get our dough!

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Take action now to stop your tax dollars from going overseas!  Click on this link by Campaign for America’s Future:

      http://action.ourfuture.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=68 

Scott N. Paul

By Scott N. Paul
Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing

Our nation faces rising unemployment, staggering debts, shrinking trade, and no sense of when (and if) a real recovery — one that reaches Main Street and working families — will take hold.

As the federal government responds to these concerns, and especially since President Obama was sworn in, shrill warnings against protectionist measures have been issued by editorial pages and foreign officials. The specter of widening and deepening the current recession, or returning to 1930s Smoot-Hawley trade policies, has been repeatedly invoked.

But American protectionism is a myth. If one wishes to point fingers, they should be directed toward Beijing, Tokyo, Brussels, and Seoul, where mercantilism and subsidies still reign supreme.

This is the untold story of protectionism: the barriers that other governments erect to block American goods and the mercantilist measures they utilize to gain market share in the U.S. These practices range from China’s currency misalignment and massive industrial subsidies to non-tariff barriers in Korea and Japan. All these impediments have been well documented by U.S. trade officials, but the mere act of identifying these practices is now viewed as protectionism, even though taking action to eliminate them would expand world trade, reduce global imbalances and preserve the free market.

The obsession with American protectionism is nothing more than a diversion from the real questions that need to be answered. How do we end global imbalances and achieve a balance between our exports and imports? How do we revitalize our nation’s manufacturing sector, which is responsible for a large share of America’s innovation and production? How do we begin growing jobs again in this difficult business environment?

Congress took a very small step forward in the stimulus package passed in February by requiring some materials used in infrastructure projects to be sourced domestically to the extent permitted by U.S. trade obligations. The value of the materials affected is only a small fraction of the $4 trillion in two-way trade that crosses the U.S. border annually, but it is providing a much-needed boost to the American manufacturing sector. Contrary to widely held perceptions, this Buy America rule is not a new requirement, nor does it make America a renegade nation.

Buy America has served as an effective jobs generator and a smart economic policy for decades. It applied to materials used in the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. In the midst of a recession during the early 1980s, President Reagan signed legislation that strengthened Buy America requirements. Some sort of domestic sourcing requirement has applied to most major infrastructure expenditures passed by Congress since World War II, so it would have been a surprise if a requirement had not been attached to the stimulus spending.

And Buy America can create good jobs. A study prepared earlier this year by economists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst estimates that strong domestic sourcing requirements create about one-third more manufacturing jobs than otherwise would be the case.

In fact, Buy America won’t just help the United States. For example, because of integration, the provision works to the benefit of the entire North American steel and auto industry, including in Canada.

Buy America policies also reward other nations with reciprocal government procurement agreements by exempting them from certain types of restrictions. Current procurement rules allow states and some localities to opt out of reciprocal obligations, leaving decision-making in the hands of local officials, who know far better than bureaucrats in Geneva or Washington what is best for their local economies.

There will never be a repeat of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, at least not in America. We have not asked for sky-high tariffs. We have not asked for domestic procurement measures that violate our trade obligations. But we will continue to insist that countries like China honor the commitments they made to gain access to our market and stop their cheating, and we will work with Congress to ensure that tax dollars devoted to infrastructure spending are reinvested in the American economy.

The success of American manufacturing depends on a fair application of international trade rules. Buy America is fully consistent. But the market-distorting practices emanating from places like China are not. Let’s stop protectionism where it really festers.

By Tom Conway
USW International Vice President

Swiss-Russian owned Duferco Farrell Corp. refuses to comply with the Buy American requirements in the $787 billion stimulus package.

One consequence of that decision is the Duferco rolling mill located in Farrell, Pa., north of Pittsburgh, lost a major customer — Wheatland Tube Co., situated a few hundred yards down the street in Farrell.

Another is that Duferco, which opposes buying American, milked that loss for more tons of false publicity than an overloaded truck of steel coils at a weigh station.

Duferco Farrell made itself out to be a victim of Buy American, claiming the provision cost it a customer, and the Washington Post and New York Times swallowed that whale whole, without making any effort to dissect it.

Here’s what really happened:

Wheatland Tube, a pipe maker, stopped buying rolled steel from its Farrell neighbor because Duferco gets steel slabs from Russia and has refused to buy from domestic producers.

Wheatland is sensitive to the issue of imports, having been burned by unfair competition from China. It is among the plaintiffs in trade cases alleging unfair competition. But, more immediately, Wheatland officials feel that under the Buy American provisions, its products must be produced with American-made steel, or they can’t be bought with stimulus funds.

Bill Kerins, president of Wheatland, said he backs Buy American because it provides opportunities for American workers. It is, essentially, American tax dollars dedicated to providing jobs for American workers. And, polls show, a large majority of Americans support it. They oppose anyone spending their tax dollars to create jobs in foreign countries. He has said that more and more of Wheatland’s customers are demanding that it  meet the requirements of  Buy American.

Kerins made it clear to the Sharon Herald, the local newspaper for the town of Farrell, that he’s perfectly willing to buy rolled steel from Duferco again, if the company obtains slabs from domestic producers. Here’s what he said: “We’re prepared to do business with Duferco Farrell when they’re able to be in compliance with the Buy American provision, and we hope they’re able to work that out.”

That would leave you with the sense that Duferco could work something out, right? Well, not if you read the Washington Post or the New York Times. Neither bothered to quote Kerins or the United Steelworkers. Both limited themselves to quoting Duferco  - a one-sided story. They failed to adequately question. As a result, both provide a completely false impression.

The Washington Post, in a May 15 story, says, “The new buy American provisions, the company said, are being so broadly interpreted that Duferco Farrell is on the verge of shutting down.”

The Post story also says, without citing a source, that Duferco “manufactures its coils at its Pennsylvania plant using imported steel slabs that are generally not sold commercially in the United States.”

Finally it quotes Duferco executive vice president Bob Miller saying, “I’ve got 600 United Steel Workers [sic] out there who are going to lose their jobs because of this. And you tell me this is good for America?”

The New York Times followed, on June 3, with an editorial slamming Buy American and citing the Duferco case. The editorial gives Duferco and one other example as the reason Buy American is ‘perilous,” saying Duferco “has cut 600 jobs in Pennsylvania after it lost orders from its biggest customer because some of its goods are partly produced abroad.”

That’s just not true. And if the New York Times or the Washington Post had done an ounce of reporting work, they’d have known it. Look up the Sharon Herald clips – available on line.

Duferco began furloughing hundreds of workers last fall – long before Wheatland stopped buying from them. When the USW local there signed its labor agreement in November, Duferco already had laid off more than half of the mill’s unionized workers.  Manufacturing workers across American began losing their jobs last fall as a result of the downturn in the economy – not Buy American provisions.

In addition, there are other serious problems with the Post story. It says Duferco uses steel slabs not generally sold commercially in the U.S. If the Post had spent a minute listening to Kerins from Wheatland or to the USW, it would have gotten a different story. Kerins’ quote – saying Wheatland is prepared to do business with Duferco when it complies with Buy American – clearly suggests he knows there’s a way for Duferco to do that.

In fact, there is. Two domestic steel companies have offered to supply Duferco with the 10-inch steel slabs it prefers, at the specifications it says it requires, at a market-based price. Both firms have informed Duferco of those offers.

Duferco mostly imports its 10-inch slabs now from OJSC Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) of Russia, which is the Russian part owner of Duferco. NLMK also owns a mill in Portage, Indiana, called Beta Steel Corp. Like most U.S. mills, its work force has been cut back, so orders for its 8-inch slabs would give its American workers paychecks again.

Wheatland has informed Duferco that it is willing to modify its specifications so that NLMK 8-inch slab produced in Indiana may be used.

Duferco’s response: shipping slabs from NLMK facilities in Portage, Ind. to Farrell, Pa., a distance of 375 miles, is prohibitively expensive, as is the cost of shipping the 10-inch slabs from the Maryland or Alabama mills to Pennsylvania. So Duferco must continue sending steel the thousands of miles from NLMK facilities in Lipetsk, Russia to Farrell, Pa.

Really?

Somehow that doesn’t smack of the truth. In fact, it sounds like Duferco is making every effort to avoid buying American, while its customers, its workers and even potential suppliers are all scrambling to help it buy American and re-employ its workforce.

What is really going on here is Duferco perverted this situation in an attempt to smear the Buy American provision. The Washington Post and the New York Times made no serious attempt to check out the multi-national’s lame allegations.

Not much more could be expected from a Swiss-Russian-owned corporation. That multi-national has no allegiance to America. It just wants to use this country to generate profits. If Duferco can get its hands on American tax dollars to profit in Lipetsk, it will be all the happier. But for the Washington Post and the New York Times to support that is, really, un-American.

QUESTION: Polls show strong support for “Buy American” legislation – which requires that government entities using tax-dollar supported stimulus grants buy domestically-produced products such as steel whenever possible. From your conversations with friends and neighbors, do you think most people really understand why it is so crucial to the American economy right now?

Yes we can Buy American

We think that Americans are currently far more aware of the values of stimulus and buying American products than they have been permitted to be for the past several years.  Because of the trust level in the current administration, driven by continuing efforts by the president to communicate with us, people are willing to make choices in line with what is best for our economy.  Hopefully, this trust we have will extend to believing in Obama’s efforts on behalf of unions too.
Jay and Lucia Weinroth
Big Prairie, Ohio

Little thought of Buy American

We are already very strongly “buying American,” but my sense is that most people have not really thought about it very much.  Local car dealerships are doing strong advertising along these lines, however, so that may pay off.
Bill Prentiss
Orlando, Fla.

Tariff now

In this day of global economy, global stimulus plans, and Uni Global Union, we must, finally, admit Americans are in a GLOBAL COMPETITION for jobs, standard of living and national economic standing. The surrender policy this nation’s corporations and politicians have given this great nation in condemning it to a service economy is a travesty. All great economic powers are based on their MANUFACTURING ability. Due to other nations taking advantage of our corporate policies of off-shoring, union busting and desperate allegiance to higher profit margins, we are in position to become a second tier economy. While other nations devalue their currency, pirate American technology, and use all protectionist measures available to them, our leaders continue to see the global economy as first priority over American security. If no one HERE has a job manufacturing American goods at a livable wage, how do they expect us to be able to

BUY anything other than Wal-Mart Chinese goods on the Chinese wages we’re receiving? I say don’t blame the Unions. Blame political and corporate greed. Give us a level playing field: tariff now.
John Buck
Point Pleasant Borough, N.J.

More Buy American education

People seem to understand the sentiment of buying American made goods, but they fall short in the practice.  I even know of a New York affiliate that distributed Chinese made “union logo” jackets at their December holiday meeting.  “If we bought American we couldn’t distribute them for free to our members,” I was informed by that local’s President.  He seemed only slightly embarrassed as he said this.

Sad, but true.  More ”Buy American” education is necessary.
Kevin Sexton
Flushing, N.Y.

Buy American and protectionism

I’ve been a union man since before I was born (my grandfather was a baker, my grandmother a seamstress, I’m a professor) and I strongly support almost every union initiative and position: except pushing for protectionist, “Buy American” legislation. Protectionism can lead to an uncontrollable retaliatory spiral that will ruin the world’s and America’s economy for years to come. “Buy American” is the wrong approach to a real problem: unfair competition, cheap wages and poor conditions in foreign countries.

The right solution includes:

1) enactment of single-payer national health so that we get guaranteed health and so that American business won’t be saddled with a competitive barrier compared to foreign companies that do not have to pay health care benefits;

2) a militant campaign against environmental and labor standards violations in other countries (not boycotts, but demonstrations at embassies, visits to the countries involved);

3) strong ties with and funding support for unionists in other countries — even symbolic short, large-scale sympathy strikes;

4) leverage our political strength to ensure that NAFTA, WTO etc. really get modified to promote better labor conditions world wide;

5) aggressive unionization here in America of all the industries that they CANNOT ship overseas, and aggressive struggles to raise the wages in those industries and sectors: food service workers, hospital workers, sanitation workers, doormen and janitors, transit workers, etc.;

6) repeal all right-to-work laws, the NYS Taylor Law penalties, etc. here and worldwide.
David Arnow
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Build America

The case has not been made strongly enough yet.  The Obama Administration could help make direct links between people’s basic concerns about the current state of the economy and job loss to a brighter future for every American family based on development of green industry and business built by Americans.    Unfortunately,  most people I know perceive “Buy American”  as strictly a ‘union’ issue which they don’t particularly identify with personally, and don’t understand what is good for unions is good for them.  I would like to see the issue framed as “Build America” instead of “Buy American” so that people might come to understand its importance to every American and to the global economy.   People painfully understand the economy needs to be rebuilt, and are being told to save not buy at this time.   The word “Build” instead of “Buy” better describes immediate needs.

After the last eight years of national trauma, people are skittish about ‘patriotism’ and the “Buy American” slogan may be off-putting.  So, yes, “Build America” first could lead us into a future of “Buy American.”  Also, the case for “Build America” and “Buy American” must be made by leaders outside the trade union movement as well as by our own Blue-Green Alliance.  It’s time for coalition building again.
Beth Omansky
Portland, Ore.

American imbalance

I suspect that most people do not understand that our balance of trade is so far out of balance; they may have heard that China holds around a trillion dollars of our debt, but they do not realize how much more the USA has bought from Chine than it has sold to China.  To a lesser degree, we are out of balance to Europe, Japan, and Korea. If we slow our purchasing of foreign goods, perhaps the balance will tilt back toward a more normal position.
David G. Wagner, MD
Portland, Ore.

American-made frustration

My friends feel very strongly about “Buy American,” but are frustrated because it is not easy to find American-made goods.  I would not know where to go to find American-made shoes or clothing.  Furniture and appliance stores have American, Canadian, and Asian items side by side and it is difficult to know which is which. Food and paper goods are often not labeled.  American-owned car companies purchase parts abroad, and ”foreign” ones purchase U.S. parts.
Judy Ferro
Caldwell, Idaho

Corporations selling out America

The tax structure must be changed. Freightliner closed American plants and went to Mexico. Hershey Chocolates moved to Mexico.  We have to keep the work in USA
Franz  Ortloff
Helena, Mont.

Circumventing Buy American

I think most people are not aware of the importance of Buy American and do not realize foreign countries exploit their workers. I myself think that to import to the extent that our own country has almost no domestic production of items like washers, dryers or structural steel is wrong. Some government contracts require Buy American in their subsidies for say, rail coaches, and they get around this requirement by assembling a small final component in the U.S.
Martin LaCarbonara
Woburn, Mass.

Consumers’ ignorance; manufacturers’ greed

For too long American consumers have made their purchases based on price and neither quality nor country of origin. This, coupled with the greed exhibited by manufactures and our nation’s trade policies has led to the demise of millions of good family wage jobs in the USA.

However, when the question is posed, should taxpayers dollars, meant for job creation, be spent overseas, I think that a vast majority of citizens would answer, “Of course not.”  I also believe that the recovery of our nation’s economy cannot be achieved to a great degree until we return to a nation that manufactures the goods we purchase and not a nation whose economy is based on services.
Harold Abbe
Camas, Wash.

Build American manufacturing

Instead of just passing out free money to the incompetent financial wizards at inept and possibility criminal Wall Street organizations, maybe the U.S. government should build manufacturing plants to make consumer products like refrigerators, washing machines, clothing, TV’s, and eventually all of the consumer goods that we import with that money.  We should impose import taxes high enough on these products so that US-made products are competitive in price with imported goods.  These plants should periodically and/or constantly be for sale based upon competitive bidding, but at a minimum price at least equal to as much as the government investment.  The money passed out to the financial industries does nothing to create jobs or eliminate the problems with the US economy.  Maybe it helps pay for the commissions of the U.S. salesmen of the expensive new French-manufactured private jet airplanes.  The French people making these (Falcon 20-25) airplanes are probably very thankful for Obama’s generosity.
Gerald R. Spencer, P.E.
Houston, Texas 

More solutions

Given that we are thoroughly enmeshed in World Trade, an attempt at nationalism would probably be counter productive.  Other countries would retaliate.

Instead, I should like to suggest the following changes:

1.  Re-write our trade policies to correct the off-set balance of payments.

2.  Make importers legally responsible for the safety of their products.

3.  Reward businesses that create jobs for U.S. workers.

4. Give tax relief for small businesses.
Suzanne Orr
Port Angeles, Wash.

Think past price

I don’t think most Americans think past the price. I admit I personally succumb to the temptation to pay less for imports manufactured with slave labor, although if there’s an American made product for not too much more, I will buy it.

I do make an effort to buy locally-grown food and wood products, as farming and lumber products support my neighbors. Companies like ADM and Cargill need their feet held to the fire with heavy tariffs or outright bans on importation of slave products.

Hopefully, the Obama administration will implement fair-trade mandates on imports, which will make U.S.-made products price-competitive and return our jobs.

Live long and perspire,

Jerry (Steve) Dodge
Springdale, Wash.