ManufactureThis would like to wish all our readers a Happy July 4th.  We’ll return with our regular content on Monday July 6, but on this Independence Day weekend we want to encourage everyone to ponder the importance of U.S. manufacturing.  Without a strong, secure, self-sufficient industrial base the United States would not have been able to survive and prosper for the past two centuries.  And that’s what independence is all about.

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Lila Kalick of the Campaign for America’s Future penned an excellent piece analyzing the prospects for U.S.-China trade policy under the Obama Administration.   And she notes the significance of the recent ITC decision in favor of U.S. tire manufacturers who were dealing with a surge of tires from China:

On Monday, The International Trade Commission (ITC) unanimously voted to recommend that President Obama impose tariffs on the import of Chinese tires for three years. The new administration will have until September 17 to decide what, if any, relief to provide based on the ITC’s recommendation. Will Obama cave to the power of business lobbies and conservatives to follow in the footsteps of President Bush, or support a policy that will help our long term economy?

Read more.

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The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, its highest level in 26 years, according to the latest Labor Department data. Job losses were heavy in the manufacturing sector, with another 136,000 good-paying jobs lost.

Revising U.S. trade policy and strengthening U.S. manufacturing is critical to any attempt at recovery.

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The World Trade Organization (WTO) has issued a report backing the use of global warming import duties. The report states that nations that put cap-and-trade legislation into place to combat global warming may be eligible to apply import duties at the border in order to protect their domestic producers.

“Rules permit, under certain conditions, the use of border tax adjustments on imported and exported products,” states the WTO report published jointly with the United Nations Environment Program. “The objective of a border tax adjustment is to level the playing field between taxed domestic industries and untaxed foreign competition by ensuring that internal taxes on products are trade neutral.

Read more.

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Jefferson, Wisconsin: Briggs & Stratton’s plants in Jefferson and Watertown, which manufacture all portable generator, home standby generator and pressure washer products for the company, will be closing their doors resulting in 430 jobs lost.

The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, its highest level in 26 years, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Job losses were widespread among the construction, manufacturing and business and professional services sectors.

19 months into the recession, plenty of economic indicators are still getting worse. Inventories fell yet again, orders are still drying up, and companies that make things consumers want are still uniformly gloomy. A survey of US manufacturing conditions from the Institute of Supply Management reveals that manufacturers are far from cosy.

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AAM’s Indiana Field Coordinator Mike Mitchell checked in to give us a report of recent news:

“SOAR President Alan Penkowski allowed me the opportunity to give an update on AAM’s activities at his SOAR meeting.  I talked about the ‘Keep it Made in America’ bus tour and saving 7.2 million jobs tied to the U.S. auto parts supply chain.  The possibility of losing 7.2 millions jobs would put a strain  on an already crippled economy. It would add to the 52 million already uninsured and has the potential to increased the number of pensions taken over by PBGC (the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation).

“The SOAR members were glad to hear about the (ITC) International Trade Commission ruling in favor of a USW petition for the domestic tire industry but didn’t find any humor in JC Penney’s advertising an “American Made” T-shirt that was actually made in Mexico.

“SOAR President Alan Penkowski was outraged by the idea of the auto industry offshoring more production while being supported with taxpayers dollars.  He encouraged his members to get involved and call their elected officials.  He said ,”We elected them, they should be working for us, and they need to know that.”

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Now, this doesn’t strictly have to do with manufacturng and trade policy, but we wanted to share with our readers some fun news.  AAM Media Director Steven Capozzola has adopted a dog named Maddie.  Steven reports the following:

My girlfriend and I moved to New York City recently, and we knew we wanted a dog.  This past Saturday we went to a shelter on 110th Street in New York City.  It’s very heavy going to one of these shelters– no budget, not the cleanest conditions, a shortage of volunteers, a lot of sad dogs in cages who weakly wag their tails as you walk by.

We looked all through the shelter– which happens to be a “Kill shelter” because dogs are put to sleep when the facility becomes too crowded.  We walked a number of dogs, but didn’t connect with any of them.

The next day, we drove an hour into Brookyln to visit another public dog shelter–also a kill facility.  There were two rooms of dogs.  As I walked most of the way down the first aisle of the larger room, saying hello to each dog and letting them sniff my hand through their cage bars, I came upon a skinny little female mutt who jumped up and put her paws on the cage bars.  She started wagging her tail wildly and looking at me intensely.  Her tail was wagging and I said a big hello.  She started licking my hand against the cage bars.

Her name was “Royce” and she was shelter number A817065.  Apparently, she’d been found in some park in Brooklyn.  She was listed as a “brown stray, pit mix, 1 year,” and had been brought into the shelter on June 25th, which meant she’d been in that cage for most of the past three days.

I loved her right away and asked if we could take her for a walk.  My girlfriend had found some other dogs, though, that she wanted to try, including “Oreo,” whose posting we had seen online.  So, we walked Oreo and Sally and another dog before taking Royce for a little walk in the parking lot.

As soon as Royce got out of the cage, she started licking my face.  Just a happy, friendly, sweet dog.  We spent a lot of time with her, and I wanted to adopt her. 

To make a long story short, she was transferred to the 110th Street shelter the next day.  We went to see her again, put in an application, and picked her up the following day.

She is now our dog, renamed MADDIE.  For the pictures above– the first one is at the Brooklyn shelter, the second is at the Manhattan shelter, the third one is her at home with her new family.

A sad note, though: as I was handing in my application for Maddie on Monday night, one of the staff workers mentioned to a co-worker that she was busy “typing up the euthanasia list.”  So, some of the dogs in that shelter didn’t find a home.

Also, apparently stray dogs have been on the rise of late, in part because more people are unemployed and can’t feed their dogs.  They simply leave them in parks or let them run away.  Maybe that’s how we got Maddie, but we’re going to give her a good home.

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As we’ve reported many times, there are continuing problems with unsafe imports from China.  And sicne little has changed, it doesn’t surprise us to learn that, as McClatchy News reports, ‘Chinese makers of shoddy goods rarely face U.S. sanctions.’

According to McClatchy News:

Chinese manufacturers made more than half of the goods that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled last year, but few of them paid any price for producing defective wares.

The long list of faulty products included Chinese-made highchairs whose seat backs failed, steam cleaners that burned their users, bikes whose front-wheel forks broke, saunas that overheated, illuminated exit signs that stopped working when commercial power failed, dune buggies whose seat belts broke on impact and coffee makers that overheated and started fires.

Click here to read more.

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Columbus, Indiana: An electric motor manufacturer, Baldor Electric Co., has laid off 120 employees due to company consolidation.

Valparaiso, Indiana: Emerson Power Transmission, a leading power transmission supplier, is planning to lay off 35 employees.

Southbridge, Massachusetts: A 3M manufacturing plant that makes safety googles and ear plugs announced its plans to close next year, laying off 200 employees.

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The Early Shift will return next week.  Have a good 4th of July!