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So I took a tour of a steel plant today. There was a lot of hot, molten steel, but also high-tech computerized systems running the show, making sure just enough steel is poured into a mold at just the right temperature and speed, among many other functions. The tour was sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Campaign for America’s Future as part of the Netroots Nation conference here in Pittsburgh.
On the way to the Edgar Thomson plant, we passed by the spot on the Monongahela River where, in 1892, striking steelworkers literally did battle with Pinkerton thugs who tried a sneak attack on them from barges in the river. The workers were prepared, and the Pinkertons surrendered. Ultimately, though, Carnegie, the owner of the plant, won the Homestead strike.
Passing by Homestead was a reminder that many people associate steel mills with the hazy history of our nation But this tour was not about nostalgia. It was about the future—and how steel plants and manufacturing must be an essential part of 21st century America, or our economy will wither. And while Homestead and other early 20th century labor battles often were hand-to-hand combat, the new corporate masters are no less brutal than the old—just a lot more clever.
Earlier today at the panel "Bloggers and Blue Collar Workers Unite: You Have Nothing to Lose but Wall Street Domination," Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) pointed to how the same anti-worker corporate interests that are fighting health care reform and other key progressive issues push relentlessly to move overseas family-supporting jobs like those at steel plants.
These same corporate interests ensure that Congress maintains policies that reward their short-term profits—like sending jobs overseas—rather than developing long-term strategies for strengthening our economy.
A far-reaching policy would place the United States at the center of green jobs creation. It would understand that when manufacturing jobs go away, so does the R&D—and our nation cannot get ahead with such a brain drain. It would recognize that the current economic disaster showed that the nation cannot rely on the financial services industry as the generator of its economy. If we don’t make things, that is, if U.S. manufacturing is not revived, we will have nothing to export and no job creation.
United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, who also was on the panel, noted that it’s no accident that China is making 90 percent of the solar panels in the world. China’s government wants its country to be at the forefront of this technology, and so it is.
Edwards discussed how the creation of a high-speed train in this country passed Congress—yet we have no way to make any of the tracks, cars or engines for the new system.
The USW members at the U.S. Steel plant are proud of what they do, and it showed as they maneuvered our groups around the massive machines and 3,000-degree steel plates. They know what too many Americans don’t—unless we make things in this country, we die.
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Thanks for this Tula. Too few people know the history of the union busting/union bashing and too little understanding of how ALL the pieces of the economy fit together.
As in where do the jobs/money come from to support the businesses if they send all the jobs overseas?
Tula Connell, your middle name must be Connect-the-dots. Every time I read one of your posts, a light bulb goes off over my head. And yes, it’s a compact fluorescent.
What a great post, thank you so much!
Thanks for this, Tula.
Forgive the snark, but that configuration of gears in your graphic? Locked. No move-ie. Unintentionally the opposite of the intended symbolism, I’m sure!
FunnyWheelieDiva
Some people are steal workers, including some members of Congress!
Yes, we must not forget the context of our present situation. We are just a small part of a long history. The labor movement is not some piece of dead 19th or 20th Century history — it is ongoing. The forces allied against working people have not stopped. They’ve changed tactics and pressed their advantage, but they have never relented.
Even before the late 1800’s the movement involved peasantry against landed gentry. We can trace the movement at least as far back as the Magna Carta – if not all the way back to Jesus (read the book of James).
The Declaration of Independence was a major milestone, but the oligarchs are patient and have steadily worked at chipping away freedoms and co-opting the democratic systems for their own uses.
And the battle rages on.
Totally cool Tula!
Or should I make that totally hot?
In my youth, I once worked a summer at a steel plant, but before Nomex existed, so it was my own shirts and jeans that always ended up with holes burned in ‘em. Talk about fookin’ warm!
And after each and every shift (3:30 to 11:30 PM), each of us looked like we had just come out of a coal mine.
We were liberally covered in black coke used in the process, and having sweated through another 8 hour shift, that stuff was so embedded in our skin and clothes that normal washing just never got it out anytime soon.
And I learned that various auto parts are made of Ductile iron and they take hours and hours to cool down (yep, learned the hard way. Ouchie!).
Speaking of labor:
Links and video at link.
Wow. Good on them. The “good” dems are going to have to use some more influence on the recalcitrant.
FWDiva
Excellent ! This sort of thing, along with Howard Dean saying today that Dems who voted against public option will be primaried, is the push-back we need. It’s about time.
ROI from manufacturing 8% to 10%.
ROI from financial trading 15% to 200%.
Where would you put your money?
I hear exactly the same discussion in London by stockbrokers in the late 1960s.
the only problem with their logic here is that if one follows the chain all the way down the rabbit hole, one will discover that behind all financial assets, no matter how inflated their values are, there has to be an underlying stream of cashflows. Thus, in the longterm and for any given level of risk, there is no such thing as a financial asset that yields a return of 15%-200% in perpetuity when the underlying cashflows only implicate a yield of 8%-10%. No forecast growth rate in those cashflows will ever justify the excess return in perpetuity (at zero risk arbitrage)…. which means that, eventually, you either wind up with the mother of all bubbles.. or you wind up with Madoff (because there was no underlying cashflow-generating asset to begin with). There is no such thing as value outside of an actual or potential (and validatable) underlying cashflow, by definition. By definition, such a case is fraud.
I agree. But people look to immediate large transaction gains and don’t consider longer term.
I went to Catholic schools in the late 50s and early 60s, and we studied the history of labor, including the Pullman and Homestead strikes, and all the rest.