‘Manufacture American’ to Create Jobs

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Steelworkers—and their families—rallied in Illinois against the use of Indian-made pipe for a oil pipeline. Photo: Doug May, USW Local 1899.


— Al Cholger

“Buy American” used to be code for attacks on Japanese, Chinese, or Mexican workers. But it isn’t the workers from these countries who move jobs offshore; it’s the owners and investors of the companies who have wrecked our economy, laid waste our communities, and shortchanged our hospitals and schools, while filling their own pockets.

We are not falling prey to the old arguments of division and hatred, but for a new economy that encourages solidarity with workers, across all borders.
SOLIDARITY: THE DIFFERENCE

The international solidarity work that the Steelworkers do—with endangered unionists in Colombia, with our union partner Unite in Britain, with Brazilians, and supporting Mexican copper miners from Los Mineros at Cananea—has made a difference. At a gut level we get it—and that is reflected in the ways our campaign is interpreted at all levels of the union.

When rank-and-file Steelworkers meet Mexican mineworkers, and demonstrate at their embassy to tell the government of Mexico to keep its hands off Los Mineros President Napoleon Urrutia Gomez, it makes it clearer for our members that our Buy American campaign does not attack Mexican, or Japanese or Chinese, workers. You can’t demonize foreign workers and support them at the same time.

It’s a lesson I learned early in my union career, when I met South African workers who were fighting against harsh treatment from 3M Corp. They were here in solidarity with American workers who were in a life and death fight with 3M in Freehold, New Jersey.

People throughout the world need to support their local communities as they support other workers throughout the world. Just as “buying local” makes sense as an environmental rallying cry, it’s reasonable as a healthy approach to the world economy. International employers are often pressured to be more responsible by unions there. So it only makes sense to develop global unionism.
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We don’t say just “Buy American” but also “Manufacture American.” We focus on getting communities to support products that are produced locally. We don’t distinguish a U.S. company from a foreign-owned one. We focus on where the jobs are being created and maintained, and which employers support living wages and benefits.
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FULL ARTICLE
http://labornotes.org/node/2223