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Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

America plays the role of abused partner in its relationship with China. Although the Asian giant repeatedly injures U.S. industry by violating international trade rules, America has responded, almost exclusively, by pleading and begging for China to stop.

China says it’s sorry. And continues to violate the rules. America respectfully beseeches China to discontinue manipulating its currency, and China says it will. Then it allows the value to increase a completely insignificant amount. Still America does nothing. Nothing. It simply accepts the abuse.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Michael Williams, senior vice president of U.S. Steel stood with me Wednesday at a press conference in Pittsburgh to urge President Obama in his meetings this week with Chinese President Hu Jintao to announce that America is done with soft talk. We want President Obama to tell President Hu that America has heard enough promises; the United States is bucking up and pulling out that big stick that Teddy Roosevelt carried in foreign policy negotiations.

This is a rare issue on which politicians, Republican and Democrat, manufacturers and organized labor all agree. Here’s what Sen. Casey said at the press conference, “In my estimation, and that of a lot of Americans, the time for talking is over. The time for action is now.” He, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., plan to introduce legislation next week to force the federal government to hold China accountable, to enforce compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules – rules that China agreed to comply with when WTO countries permitted it to join even though it is a non-market economy.

Mr. Williams described the effect of China’s unchallenged trade practices on American steel production:

“Our facilities in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States are among the most advanced in the world:

• We make the highest quality steel for the most demanding applications;
• Our technology is world competitive; and
• Our workers are second to none in skill and know-how.

However, the more than 21,000 U.S. Steel employees nationwide, and the more than 4,700 employees here in Pennsylvania, know all too well that we do not always operate in a fair global marketplace.   Instead, we are often faced with the reality of a distorted market – a market where we have to compete against job-stealing dumped and subsidized imports from countries that abuse the rules to gain a false competitive advantage.

No country more than China hurts all American manufacturing by the way it artificially undervalues its currency – making its exports artificially cheap and making competitive imports from the U.S. and elsewhere artificially expensive.”

Here are the facts: American industries have found that they can produce products, ship them to China and price them lower than Chinese competitors.  But all too often, China prohibits sale of the American-made products on the mainland.

Sen. Casey gave an example, C.F. Martin & Co., which manufacturers its world-famous guitars in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Martin tried to register its mark to sell its instruments in China. But it has been unable to do that because a Chinese manufacturer already registered the mark and is counterfeiting the guitars. “To say it is unlawful does not begin to describe the gravity of it,” the senator said.

In addition to countenancing counterfeiting, China provides illegal subsidies to its export industries, violates international regulations forbidding forced technology transfer when American companies seek to manufacture in China and deliberately undervalues its currency to falsely lower the price of its exports.

When Mr. Williams, Sen. Casey and I all said this must be stopped with enforcement of international regulations, someone in the audience asked if that would prompt a dreaded trade war. That won’t happen because we already are in a trade war. The United States simply is not fighting back. We are playing the passive partner in a perverted relationship, repeatedly allowing the abuser to pound us.

Mr. Williams said it best:

“U.S. Steel wants a strong America. To have a strong America, we need a strong manufacturing base. To have a strong manufacturing base, we need strong enforcement of international trade regulations.”

Sen. Casey agreed:

“Our government must take every step necessary. It is not enough to say to the unemployed, ‘We are trying and we are asking.’”

Wield the stick, President Obama.

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Leo W. Gerard also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute.  He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union.

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard

International President

The words Barack Obama uses are deeply meaningful to organized labor. He speaks to union members on a gut level about concepts that define their lives: unity and brotherhood.

Listen to what he says in his closing argument speech:

“Each of us has a responsibility to work hard and look after ourselves and our families, and each of us has a responsibility to our fellow citizens. That’s what’s been lost these last eight years – our sense of common purpose; of higher purpose. And that’s what we need to restore right now.”

That’s the theme of serving as a brother’s keeper that Obama detailed at the Democratic National Convention.

He continues in the “closing” speech:

“Yes, we can argue and debate our positions passionately, but at this defining moment, all of us must summon the strength and grace to bridge our differences and unite in common effort – black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; Democrat and Republican, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight, disabled or not.”

These are the lyrics of unity that have distinguished Obama throughout his campaign.

They resonate with union members, who unify to achieve greater good for all and who call each other brother and sister because we are willing to sacrifice for one another.

This is what has lured members of my union, the United Steelworkers, to work for a candidate for president harder and longer than they ever have before.

More than 10,000 Steelworkers have volunteered their time to ensure Barack Obama’s election. They’ve knocked on doors, manned phone banks, filled envelopes with letters of persuasion, leafleted at plant gates, worked to protect voters’ rights and helped with the Steel Blitz for Barack bus tour that took Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and retired players on visits to battleground areas in Pennsylvania and Ohio over the past four weeks.

Steelworkers gathered together to accomplish these tasks, inspired by Barack Obama’s words of harmony:

“In this election, we cannot afford the same political games and tactics that are being used to pit us against one another and make us afraid of one another. The stakes are too high to divide us by class and region and background; by who we are or what we believe.

Because despite what our opponents may claim, there are no real or fake parts of this country. There is no city or town that is more pro-American than anywhere else – we are one nation, all of us proud, all of us patriots.”

By Election Day, Steelworker volunteers will have called and spoken to more than 105,000 union members in a dozen battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. It’s an incredibly time-consuming and frustrating endeavor because to reach that many human beings, 850,000 phone calls will have been made. Many of those were entreaties to answering machines. But Steelworkers carried on, spurred by Obama’s counsel that everyone must work together to be part of the solution:

“I ask you to believe – not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.”

On weekends and evenings, Steelworkers across the country went door-to-door, checking in with fellow union members to ensure they supported Obama and would vote on Nov. 4. This labor-intensive and gasoline-consumptive activity has proven incredibly effective in the past. Steelworker door-knocking aided both Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey in winning their seats over the past four years. Steelworkers volunteered to block-walk and drive-the-suburbs in the past two presidential elections as well, but the number who gave time this year was unprecedented. Their willingness to suffer blisters and high gasoline prices was inspired by Obama’s expression of their shared principles as U.S. citizens:

“Understand, if we want to get through this crisis, we need to get beyond the old ideological debates and divides between left and right. We don’t need bigger government or smaller government. We need a better government – a more competent government – a government that upholds the values we hold in common as Americans.”

At the USW headquarters in Pittsburgh, at district offices across the country, and at local union halls, volunteers spent countless lunch hours stuffing, not their stomachs, but envelopes. All together, the USW mailed nearly 4.5 million pieces of persuasive literature. That is a lot of folding and licking. It was worth the time for Steelworkers who understand negotiation and support Obama’s intent to talk to prevent war:

“I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the Twenty-First Century and I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.”

I’ve been part of the campaign as well, phone banking, block walking, and touring and talking with the Steel Blitz for Barack. I know great leadership when I see it. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was once Obama’s primary foe, mentioned what is for a union leader a key factor in leadership. Here’s what Richardson said during Obama’s half hour presentation to the American people Wednesday night about the Democratic candidate: “This guy is special because I think he can bring people together.”

That is what compelled 10,000 Steelworkers to donate their time and energy to Obama. He creates connections. He unifies. He motivates us all by calling on America to be the best she can be:

“In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

“In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history. . .

“. . . together we will change this country and we will change the world.”

Steelworkers joined untold thousands of other Obama enthusiasts across the country to get him elected. If he is, Steelworkers will remain active to support his goals and ours during an Obama administration.