Over the last few decades workers in the steel industry have taken a significant hit. This has left a huge loophole for Chinese steel manufactures to undercut US steel mills and gain a stronghold on the market.
More recently there have been many examples of large construction projects that have relied on Chinese produced steel. One of the most famous was the reconstruction of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco California. The NH Labor News talked about the $500 billion dollar project that was slotted to be funded under President Obama's reinvestment program. The problem was that the reinvestment program required American made products and a project labor agreement for worker protections. These restrictions are some of the reasons that the California Legislature decided not to use federal funds to fund the project.
In fact the project was completed with Chinese steel and Chinese workers, a double slap in the face for American workers. The chinese government continues to use currency manipulation to make trade more favorable for their exports. Currency manipulation is one of the biggest problems in trading with China. “Due to currency manipulation the raw materials costs in the United States are the same as final price of Chinese steel” said Congressman Tim Ryan. This unfair advantage has bigger effects on our national economy than just the cost of steel.
This was not the only problems with the Bay Bridge project. The project was plagued with huge delays mostly due to shipping and steel construction. Scott Paul, Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Executive Director explains::
“The problems with the Bay Bridge project could have been avoided if California officials had made it in America. Instead, the project is costing American jobs, undermining California’s environmental goals, and facing numerous delays.”
In a recent
Wall Street Journal article Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union, said Chinese steel's "supposed cost savings do not take into account the environmental price of shipping steel from hundreds of thousands of miles versus 100 miles, nor the cost to our fragile economic recovery and the loss of American jobs."
This Wall Street Journal article is creating a stir with some of the leaders in our nations building trades. General President Walter Wise of the Iron Workers released this rebuttal:
While “U.S. Icons Now Made Of Chinese Steel” accurately depicts the ramifications of subsidized Chinese competition to our strategic steel fabrication industry, the author fails to address methods by which we can commit to re-build its capacity. Rather than abandon the U.S. steel and fabrication market for cheap labor, untested Chinese products, and the insecurity of that supply chain; the commitment to the use of U.S.-produced steel and fabrication to rebuild our 20,000 failed bridges and aging infrastructure will expand and modernize our native capacity with private capital. In the process, they will create jobs, providing a shot in the arm to the U.S. economy that far outweighs any perceived savings from Chinese purchases. Perhaps most importantly, while the author references “price” six times, not once does he mention value. A $600 million bridge project fabricated by U.S.-based firms and U.S. workers will yield a huge local economic impact. The same project secured by the Chinese bidder at $500 million, while cheaper, produces an economic boost in China, not here at home where our economy is still struggling to produce jobs. The “price” of Chinese steel may be low, but the value to American families is nonexistent.
We need to ask ourselves what is better for our economy, buying cheaper and inferior products from China or boosting our national economy by getting more Americans back to work?
The United States as a whole is struggling to find ways to get our economy back on track. The biggest and best thing we can do is get Americans back to work in good paying jobs. This means we need to revive our American manufacturing, including our steel producers. Every state is talking about spending hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. These are the investments we need in our country and our community.
When workers are paid a good wage they spend their money at local stores and shop. This benefits everyone from the big box store to the small businesses on main street.
We need our politicians at every level to understand that an investment in American manufacturing is an investment in America.