Turbine
07-24-2003, 09:02 PM
We're making the news now. Wait till next week. ;)
If you care about the sad state of manufacturing in this country and live within reasonable driving distance of central Connecticut, take a few hours off next Friday
morning (Aug 1) get your a$$ over to Central Conn. State University for a chance to be seen and heard. This is a serious, organized effort to pressure political leaders into action. This is NOT a one time show of support. Plan to be in this for the long haul and keep making extremely annoying waves untill something gets done.
Our shop alone is filling 2 busses. And I'll be on one of them.
I know there is at least a couple CT people here. You Mass. and New Yorkers are not too far away either.
Show up and help to make a difference.
"If you are not part of the solution...You are part of the problem"
**********************
Below is an article from Tuesdays Hartford Courant by Dan Harr
**********************
Manufacturers Fighting A Tidal Wave
Alliance Members Rallying To Stem Job Losses
(by Dan Haar)
July 22, 2003
<startquote>
It's laudable that Connecticut's manufacturers will band together in
an effort to change the world, literally, and make America once again
safe for factory jobs.
Like angry union workers, the state's spring-makers, stampers,
platers, molders, precision machine shops, eyelet people and many
assorted other firms are rising up against the tide of work rushing
out of this country.
They cannot stop the flood that has swept 2.6 million manufacturing
jobs - 32,000 in Connecticut - into oblivion since the middle of 2000.
They may be unable to slow it down one whit. But they won't watch the
downfall of the once-mighty sector of small and midsize factories, the
real and mythical backbone of American commerce, without a fight.
In a break with their conservative, tradition-bound culture, the
state's manufacturers are suddenly deploying noisy tactics. They're
upset about what they say is unfair competition from China, and
official U.S. appeasement. They're upset about large U.S.-based
companies, retailers such as Wal-Mart as well as auto and aerospace
manufacturers, reneging on contracts in favor of cheaper Asian firms.
They're upset about a religious belief in America: that ever-cheaper
consumer goods are always better for the nation, regardless of what
havoc they cause.
"This is by far the worst situation that we've ever seen, and it's
getting worse," said Fred Tedesco, whose 57-year-old family business,
Pa-Ted Spring Co. Inc. in Bristol, has been forced to shrink from 120
to 80 jobs in three years.
Sometime last year, Tedesco came up with the idea to unite
manufacturers with an effort beyond the usual, dry lobbying on tax and
subsidy issues. The public push, led by the Manufacturing Alliance of
Connecticut, starts with a rally next week to roll out an eight-point
plan to save mercantile manufacturing.
"I just couldn't stand watching the destruction of small and
medium-sized manufacturing and watching the destruction of our
businesses," Tedesco said Monday.
But this movement is bypassing state issues. All eight of the points
require federal action and some call for a reversal of decades-long
trade policy. All eight are unendingly complex.
For example, the coalition wants U.S. policymakers to force China to
let its currency float in value. As it stands now, the Chinese
renminbi, pegged to the dollar, is widely believed to be too low by 50
percent or more.
"This provides them a kind of subsidy, a kind of protection," said
University of Connecticut economist Fred Carstensen, an economic
historian.
But if Chinese consumers don't rise up in opposition because they
can't afford to buy goods and services - hard to do without a
democracy in place - there's only so much prodding the rest of the
world can do.
"I don't think we have ever attempted to deal with the issue of other
countries piggybacking on the American currency system."
Recalling a `90s buzzword, there is no low-hanging fruit here in this
eight-point plan. Worse still, even if the foreign trade establishment
were to embrace everything the alliance wants - a quixotic hope, since
much of it pits small machine shops against global corporations -
there is no turning back the tidal wash of manufacturing jobs off our
shores.
But the organizers' point isn't to repeal the laws of economics or
defeat the forces of globalism outright. Rather, they think the United
States could slow the flood with a few sensibly placed sandbags.
The reason is not just jobs, they argue, but national security in the
form of maintaining a manufacturing base.
Beyond the value of Chinese money, they want enforcement of existing
copyright and patent laws. Everyone in manufacturing, it seems, can
tell a story about a company whose product was knocked off - copied
illegally - by a foreign factory.
They want the military to spend most or all of its money on weapons
and systems made in the United States.
They want more consumer-friendly rules on product labeling, including
a way to show exactly what percentage of a product is made in the
United States. That would be an administrative nightmare, and would
lead to more fiction than Jayson Blair foisted on the readers of the
New York Times.
Some of these measures are protectionist, although that label isn't
one the manufacturers want to use.
In the big picture, consumers will continue to demand and get
ever-lower prices at the checkout counters. That, and not corporate
greed or foreign evil, is the main reason we're losing all these jobs.
In fact, Carstensen said, manufacturing, at least in Connecticut,
continues to represent just as much of the total output of goods and
services now as it did a few years ago - about one-sixth. That's down
from 30 percent a generation ago, but it appears to be holding steady.
Much of the job loss has happened because of added efficiency.
"It's still the most important sector in the economy, more important
than financial services," said Carstensen, who agreed that federal
industrial policy is in disarray.
Manufacturers in former factory strongholds such as Connecticut will
continue to occupy niches, hiding places that their Chinese
competition can't raid.
The rally organizers hope to spread the movement to other states, and
to Washington, D.C. They have a catchy slogan, "Mad in the USA,"
designed to appeal to the public.
"If we don't engage them in conversation, and if we don't impress upon
them the magnitude of the problem, we're nowhere," said Frank Johnson,
president of the manufacturing alliance. "I don't think the volume has
been loud enough."
The organizers have a manifesto, or, rather, a set of talking points,
that is flawed. But so is the state of fair trade in 2003.
If you care about the sad state of manufacturing in this country and live within reasonable driving distance of central Connecticut, take a few hours off next Friday
morning (Aug 1) get your a$$ over to Central Conn. State University for a chance to be seen and heard. This is a serious, organized effort to pressure political leaders into action. This is NOT a one time show of support. Plan to be in this for the long haul and keep making extremely annoying waves untill something gets done.
Our shop alone is filling 2 busses. And I'll be on one of them.
I know there is at least a couple CT people here. You Mass. and New Yorkers are not too far away either.
Show up and help to make a difference.
"If you are not part of the solution...You are part of the problem"
**********************
Below is an article from Tuesdays Hartford Courant by Dan Harr
**********************
Manufacturers Fighting A Tidal Wave
Alliance Members Rallying To Stem Job Losses
(by Dan Haar)
July 22, 2003
<startquote>
It's laudable that Connecticut's manufacturers will band together in
an effort to change the world, literally, and make America once again
safe for factory jobs.
Like angry union workers, the state's spring-makers, stampers,
platers, molders, precision machine shops, eyelet people and many
assorted other firms are rising up against the tide of work rushing
out of this country.
They cannot stop the flood that has swept 2.6 million manufacturing
jobs - 32,000 in Connecticut - into oblivion since the middle of 2000.
They may be unable to slow it down one whit. But they won't watch the
downfall of the once-mighty sector of small and midsize factories, the
real and mythical backbone of American commerce, without a fight.
In a break with their conservative, tradition-bound culture, the
state's manufacturers are suddenly deploying noisy tactics. They're
upset about what they say is unfair competition from China, and
official U.S. appeasement. They're upset about large U.S.-based
companies, retailers such as Wal-Mart as well as auto and aerospace
manufacturers, reneging on contracts in favor of cheaper Asian firms.
They're upset about a religious belief in America: that ever-cheaper
consumer goods are always better for the nation, regardless of what
havoc they cause.
"This is by far the worst situation that we've ever seen, and it's
getting worse," said Fred Tedesco, whose 57-year-old family business,
Pa-Ted Spring Co. Inc. in Bristol, has been forced to shrink from 120
to 80 jobs in three years.
Sometime last year, Tedesco came up with the idea to unite
manufacturers with an effort beyond the usual, dry lobbying on tax and
subsidy issues. The public push, led by the Manufacturing Alliance of
Connecticut, starts with a rally next week to roll out an eight-point
plan to save mercantile manufacturing.
"I just couldn't stand watching the destruction of small and
medium-sized manufacturing and watching the destruction of our
businesses," Tedesco said Monday.
But this movement is bypassing state issues. All eight of the points
require federal action and some call for a reversal of decades-long
trade policy. All eight are unendingly complex.
For example, the coalition wants U.S. policymakers to force China to
let its currency float in value. As it stands now, the Chinese
renminbi, pegged to the dollar, is widely believed to be too low by 50
percent or more.
"This provides them a kind of subsidy, a kind of protection," said
University of Connecticut economist Fred Carstensen, an economic
historian.
But if Chinese consumers don't rise up in opposition because they
can't afford to buy goods and services - hard to do without a
democracy in place - there's only so much prodding the rest of the
world can do.
"I don't think we have ever attempted to deal with the issue of other
countries piggybacking on the American currency system."
Recalling a `90s buzzword, there is no low-hanging fruit here in this
eight-point plan. Worse still, even if the foreign trade establishment
were to embrace everything the alliance wants - a quixotic hope, since
much of it pits small machine shops against global corporations -
there is no turning back the tidal wash of manufacturing jobs off our
shores.
But the organizers' point isn't to repeal the laws of economics or
defeat the forces of globalism outright. Rather, they think the United
States could slow the flood with a few sensibly placed sandbags.
The reason is not just jobs, they argue, but national security in the
form of maintaining a manufacturing base.
Beyond the value of Chinese money, they want enforcement of existing
copyright and patent laws. Everyone in manufacturing, it seems, can
tell a story about a company whose product was knocked off - copied
illegally - by a foreign factory.
They want the military to spend most or all of its money on weapons
and systems made in the United States.
They want more consumer-friendly rules on product labeling, including
a way to show exactly what percentage of a product is made in the
United States. That would be an administrative nightmare, and would
lead to more fiction than Jayson Blair foisted on the readers of the
New York Times.
Some of these measures are protectionist, although that label isn't
one the manufacturers want to use.
In the big picture, consumers will continue to demand and get
ever-lower prices at the checkout counters. That, and not corporate
greed or foreign evil, is the main reason we're losing all these jobs.
In fact, Carstensen said, manufacturing, at least in Connecticut,
continues to represent just as much of the total output of goods and
services now as it did a few years ago - about one-sixth. That's down
from 30 percent a generation ago, but it appears to be holding steady.
Much of the job loss has happened because of added efficiency.
"It's still the most important sector in the economy, more important
than financial services," said Carstensen, who agreed that federal
industrial policy is in disarray.
Manufacturers in former factory strongholds such as Connecticut will
continue to occupy niches, hiding places that their Chinese
competition can't raid.
The rally organizers hope to spread the movement to other states, and
to Washington, D.C. They have a catchy slogan, "Mad in the USA,"
designed to appeal to the public.
"If we don't engage them in conversation, and if we don't impress upon
them the magnitude of the problem, we're nowhere," said Frank Johnson,
president of the manufacturing alliance. "I don't think the volume has
been loud enough."
The organizers have a manifesto, or, rather, a set of talking points,
that is flawed. But so is the state of fair trade in 2003.