Tag: manufacturing

More woeful manufacturing news

It’s been a crusade of mine to encourage the rebirth of American manufacturing – unfortunately, we seem to be going the wrong way, according to the union-backed Alliance for American Manufacturing. Holding Barack Obama to his promise for one million new manufacturing jobs in his second term, the net gain has fallen with the September employment results and the August revision to 370,000. Even if you consider that their figure is a net figure, we’re still way short of one million jobs created.

Overall, the job market is creating about 200,000 jobs per month – slower than last year, but still positive growth. Unfortunately, it’s barely exceeding population growth.

You may ask yourself, though – why the emphasis on manufacturing in these quarters, particularly when you work in a service industry? To me, the answer is simple: economic growth is achieved when we add value to the overall economy. Sure, you can print money until the printing presses break but that just adds paper and not value.

Consider the iPad I’m writing this on. Originally it was a number of raw materials extracted from the ground. The first addition of value came when they were extracted, but a far larger one came when the component parts were created. A further increase in value came from the assembly process, which made the iPad into something usable by a member of the public. At that point, a little extra was added in shipping it to the venue of retail.

While I can’t ascertain where the raw materials came from, the iPad is manufactured overseas and shipped to the American market. Supposedly Apple has moved some production here, but not for iPads.

I don’t want to get bogged down in those nuts-and-bolts, but suffice to say that I think manufacturing adds more value per dollar invested than service industries. Certainly it can be fickle – the fanfare associated with this early ’70s plant expansion died quickly when a national recession shuttered it within a couple years – but more often than not good jobs are provided.

We are better off when we make stuff. China may be cheaper, but is it better? How many times have you purchased some Chinese-made trinket only to scrap it in a couple years because it was assembled in a shoddy manner with substandard parts? America used to be better than that, and I want to see us return there.

Another Trump criticism

Donald Trump took a lot of criticism from all sides last night, so this little bit of piling on won’t make much of a dent in his self-esteem. But Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing found another reason to diss on The Donald:

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is never shy in front of the camera, and his appearance at tonight’s first big GOP presidential debate will be must-see TV – especially because he takes a hard line on unfair trade with China.

Here’s one question I’d love to hear him answer: Why aren’t any of his Trump-branded goods made in America?

(snip)

During his campaign announcement speech and plenty of times since on the stump, Donald Trump has blamed China and Mexico for the loss of American manufacturing jobs. But, again, his own Trump-branded stuff is made overseas.

Trump certainly talks tough on China, jobs, and trade, but he doesn’t back it up with his own actions – while many manufacturers fight to Make it in America in spite of the odds.

I don’t believe Scott Paul is related to Rand, by the way. But this Paul’s statement is actually a valid point to make, particularly when Trump makes a loser out of America by manufacturing his goods elsewhere.

The AAM has also vowed to check on the other candidates as well, although they seem to be a bit behind. One notable omission on the Democratic side is Martin O’Malley. I did a cursory check of his website, though, and found he has no merchandise store. (Now I feel like I need a shower, though.)

When there are millions of dollars flowing through a campaign, there shouldn’t be a question about making the goods in America where possible. Given the fact most campaign merchandise comes from the apparel and printing industry it should not be hard to find these items. (Surely my old friends at American Certified can help with that.) Naturally Democrats prefer to have all their items come from union shops, while Republicans have their own list of favored suppliers. On a local level, we know which businesses are owned by Republicans so we try and steer business their way.

Like it or not, political campaigns are a multi-billion dollar business – especially on the Presidential level. So why not keep that money flowing in American hands? Hopefully the Alliance for American Manufacturing will be pleased with the level of American products they find in the various campaigns.

It also reminds me to plug my dossier series, as trade and job creation is next on the schedule. I am shooting for early next week with that one.

A First State failure

As a person who now has a job created in Delaware, I’m taking more of a vested interest in what goes on in the First State. I’ve been on the mailing list of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots for some time now, and today they sent out an update from the state’s Senate Republican Caucus. (Like Maryland, the Senate GOP is on the short end of the stick insofar as numbers are concerned, but the deficit is closer as it’s only a 12-9 Democrat majority there.)

The one thing I found interesting was a twist on the trend of states becoming right-to-work states. In Delaware, Senator Greg Lavelle had the thought of creating small “right-to-work zones” encompassing specific employers. I’ll let the Delaware Senate GOP pick it up from here:

The Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee declined this week to release a bill aimed at revitalizing Delaware’s manufacturing industry.

By not releasing Sen. Greg Lavelle’s (R-Sharpley) legislation to create right-to-work zones in Delaware, the Democrat-controlled committee has essentially killed the bill.

Under the measure, workers within these zones could not be forced to join or financially support a union as a condition of employment. It would also exempt manufacturing businesses adding at least 20 new workers from paying the Gross Receipts Tax for five years.

During Wednesday’s hour-long public hearing in Legislative Hall advocates of the bill, including representatives from several business organizations, argued such an initiative would create a more competitive environment, attract new businesses to Delaware and generate more jobs.

Sen. Lavelle identified multiple Delaware locations where the idea could take root, such as the former General Motors Boxwood Road plant near Newport, as well as other existing facilities in New Castle, Kent and Sussex counties.

His feeling after the meeting was that while the bill may be dead, the idea is not.

“For me, what came out of the meeting was that this was the first formal discussion that we’ve had about this issue in Delaware,” he said. “The fact is, coming out of the recession, where many other states have added manufacturing jobs, Delaware has lost another 3,000. So the conversation on how to turn that around has to continue. And judging from the many comments we heard in committee supporting this bill, there’s no doubt this conversation will continue.”

Worth pointing out is that Delaware has lost many of its manufacturing jobs over the last decade, declining from 33,800 such jobs in 2005 to 25,500 a decade later. That’s a 25% decrease, meaning for every 4 manufacturing jobs the state once had one was lost over the last decade. If you were the unlucky one to lose your job, it means you either had to relocate out of state or change careers, with the unfortunate byproduct of that choice being that skills gained atrophy over time.

This is a different approach than the one tried in Maryland, where Delegate Warren Miller has annually introduced a statewide right-to-work bill where the compelling arguments in its favor unceasingly fell on deaf Democratic ears in the Economic Matters Committee. Personally I think the way to go about it is a piecemeal approach, beginning with the Eastern Shore. Far from what Big Labor critics believe, Indiana – a recent convert to right-to-work – added 50,000 union jobs last year as part of an overall surge in employment growth. We can use the Eastern Shore as a petri dish for a right-to-work experiment, because Lord knows they try to impose everything we don’t want on us (tier maps, onerous septic regulations, and the PMT, to name a few.)

One big difference between Maryland and Delaware is the fact that over half of its Senate will be at stake in the 2016 elections – it is possible for the GOP to gain a majority by winning 6 of the 11 contested seats. The state GOP should make this an issue in trying to decrease joblessness – after all, a union does you little good if you are not working and over 8,000 onetime factory workers are doing something else because the state lost its competitive edge.

Delaware has always had a reputation of being business-friendly, but in this changing employment climate they have to step up their game. Going into an election year, an issue has to be made of how the state will compete going forward – after all, my job depends on it.