Tula Connell

It’s been a couple of weeks since President Obama agreed to enforce U.S. trade laws in a case involving tire imports from China—and you’d think by the reaction in some anti-worker quarters he was creating the equivalent of death panels.

In 2008 alone, China’s tire makers sold more than 46 million low-cost tires to this country for stores like Wal-Mart. More than 5,100 domestic consumer tire production jobs were lost between 2004 and 2008 by the flood of Chinese tire imports that undersold producers in the United States. Domestic tire companies have announced they will close more plants and eliminate another 3,000 jobs by the end of this year. (Check out a fact sheet on the tire decision here.)

In July, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) ruled in favor of a United Steelworkers’ (USW‘s) petition filed under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974 as amended. The USITC found that tariff relief was needed to urgently reduce those tire imports. The USW, which represents most U.S. tire workers, demanded the Obama administration act forcefully to counter this import surge. And on Sept. 11, the Obama administration agreed to provide tariff relief by increasing the duty on tires from China for three years.

How appropriate Michael Moore premiered “Capitalism: A Love Story” in Pittsburgh this week, to coincide with our 26th AFL-CIO Convention. Moore, in an action spearheaded by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), marched with AFL-CIO delegates to the movie theater, and afterward, encouraged all of us to sponsor it in theaters throughout the country, because, as he says at the end of the film, he needs help to spark the populist revolution.

He’ll have a great partner with the new leadership of the AFL-CIO. Late yesterday, delegates elected Richard Trumka president, Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer, and re-elected Arlene Holt Baker executive vice president. The team is a mini-revolution in itself: It’s the first time the top leadership of the AFL-CIO includes two women, and Shuler, 39, is the youngest-ever unionist ever to hold so high a position in the labor movement.

This week, the UAW published a list of 2010 union-made cars, trucks, vans and other vehicles. It’s also Union Label Week, which we hold annually to highlight howunion-made goods are high in quality and help support middle-class communities. These two events reminded me: Making a case for Buy American means we in the union movement need to do our job and show U.S. consumers how and where to buy American, and buy union.

Or at least we can try. I’ve seen an awful lot of brand-new BMWs, Mercedes and Lexus brands of all types driving around here in Washington, D.C., recently. Something tells me my money helped purchase those vehicles—no doubt some of the drivers are beneficiaries of taxpayer-bailed out financial institutions.

Still, not everyone is laughing all the way to making high-end purchases of foreign-made goods with U.S. taxpayer dollars. And for those who still have a conscious that can be appealed to, this list is for you.

Young people only work because they need some cash for a new iPod. So forget about raising the minimum wage. It’s not like 20-somethings are raising a family. And forget about health care reform, too. People who want health coverage have it. Young workers don’t have health coverage because they don’t want it. You know, they think they’re invincible.

If you’re a young worker, you’ve probably heard those lines more than once. And especially if you’re a young worker, you know how false they are.

We had a few young workers here at the AFL-CIO this week to talk about what it’s really like to be age 35 and younger and trying to get by. They joined us for the release of our new report: “Young Workers: A Lost Decade.”

Help me welcome Laura Clawson, senior writer at the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America (and also front-page blogger on Daily Kos…shhhh. Don’t tell.). Laura joins us today for our discussion.

You’d have to be living in a cave, or in a willful veil of ignorance, not to know how people in this country are suffering in our broken health care system. If you have health insurance through your job, that’s one more reason to be desperately afraid of losing that job (with unemployment at 9.4 percent, no less;), if you get it as an individual or a family, you have to worry that your insurance company will find a reason to dump you the minute you need it most (whether you’re insured through your job or on your own, your health care costs are exploding. Then, of course, there are the 47 million people without insurance in the United States.

Blah blah blah.

But did you know that the lolcat community is suffering? If, so far, you’ve been able to push the health care crisis to the back of your mind and put off making your voice heard, how does it make you feel to see that Dr. Tinycat can’t get care because he’s out of network?

Many people first encountered ACORN when it became a piñata in the wingnuts’ last-ditch attempt to salvage something—anything—for their base during the 2008 elections. But since 1970, when the community organizing group was founded, the organization has accomplished a lengthy and impressive list of victories on behalf of low- and middle-income families. Among its achievements, ACORN has:

* Moved more than 2 million homes into ownership by low-income people in less than 20 years.
* Spearheaded the living wage movement that resulted in raising the hourly pay of some of the lowest-paid workers in more than 140 cities between 1996 and 2006 before going on to win statewide minimum wage increases in several states, such as Ohio, Missouri, Colorado and Arizona in the 2006 elections.
* Partnered with H&R Block to reduce predatory fees charged to low-income people who receive rapid anticipation loans, with one such fee reduction resulting in a savings of $200 million for tax filers.

Today, it’s my honor to turn this space to Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) General President Mike Sullivan, leader of one of the first unions to publicly state the union is pulling all support from the Blue Dogs because of their efforts to kill real health care reform.

Remember last November? I still do.

I remember the pride I felt watching President-elect Obama and his family standing on that stage in Chicago, bolstered by the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans and the promise of change finally coming to our nation.

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.

The unemployment data is due tomorrow, and it’s likely to be bad, with an expected 300,000 to 320,000 jobs lost in July, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and others. That’s a big problem. But unfortunately, when it comes to getting the nation back to work, tomorrow’s unemployment rate isn’t the biggest problem we face.

What’s really troubling is long-term unemployment.

EPI economists see the economic stimulus as alleviating the jobs crisis created under Bush.

The Chamber of Commerce—that’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—proved once again how anti-American it is when it comes to supporting U.S. industry.

In Findlay, Ohio, unions had been organizing a parade and all-day event for this Saturday to highlight American-made products and the need for U.S. trade and economic policies that reward job growth in this country.