Suddenly, manufacturing is back -- at least on the election trail. But don't be fooled. The real issue isn't how to get manufacturing back. It's how to get good jobs and good wages back. They aren't at all the same thing.
Republicans have become born-again champions of American manufacturing. This may have something to do with crucial primaries occurring next week in Michigan and the following week in Ohio, both of them former arsenals of American manufacturing.
Mitt Romney says he'll "work to bring manufacturing back" to America by being tough on China, which he describes as "stealing jobs" by keeping value of its currency artificially low and thereby making its exports cheaper.
Rick Santorum promises to "fight for American manufacturing" by eliminating corporate income taxes on manufacturers and allowing corporations to bring their foreign profits back to American tax free as long as they use the money to build new factories.
President Obama has also been pushing a manufacturing agenda. Last month the president unveiled a six-point plan to eliminate tax incentives for companies to move offshore and create new lures for them to bring jobs home. "Our goal," he says, is to "create opportunities for hard-working Americans to start making stuff again."
Meanwhile, American consumers' pent-up demand for appliances, cars, and trucks have created a small boomlet in American manufacturing -- setting off a wave of hope, mixed with nostalgic patriotism, that American manufacturing could be coming back. Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl "Halftime in America" hit the mood exactly.
But American manufacturing won't be coming back. Although 404,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since January 2010, that still leaves us with 5.5 million fewer factory jobs today than in July 2000 -- and 12 million fewer than in 1990. The long-term trend is fewer and fewer factory jobs.
Even if we didn't have to compete with lower-wage workers overseas, we'd still have fewer factory jobs because the old assembly line has been replaced by numerically-controlled machine tools and robotics. Manufacturing is going high-tech.
Bringing back American manufacturing isn't the real challenge, anyway. It's creating good jobs for the majority of Americans who lack four-year college degrees.
Manufacturing used to supply lots of these kind of jobs, but that was only because factory workers were represented by unions powerful enough to get high wages.
That's no longer the case. Even the once-mighty United Auto Workers has been forced to accept pay packages for new hires at the Big Three that provide half what new hires got a decade ago. At $14 an hour, new auto workers earn about the same as most of America's service-sector workers.
GM just announced record profits but its new workers won't be getting much of a share.
In the 1950s, more than a third of American workers were represented by a union. Now, fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers have a union behind them. If there's a single reason why the median wage has dropped dramatically for non-college workers over the past three and a half decades, it's the decline of unions.
How do the candidates stand on unions? Mitt Romney has done nothing but bash them. He vows to pass so-called "right to work" legislation barring job requirements of union membership and payment of union dues. "I've taken on union bosses before," he says, "and I'm happy to take them on again." When Romney's not blaming China for American manufacturers' competitive problems he blames high union wages. Romney accuses the president of "stacking" the National Labor Relations Board with "union stooges."
Rick Santorum says he's supportive of private-sector unions. While in the Senate he voted against a national right to work law (Romney is now attacking him on this) but Santorum isn't interested in strengthening unions, and he doesn't like them in the public sector.
President Obama praises "unionized plants" -- such as Master Lock, the Milwaukee maker of padlocks he visited last week, which brought back one hundred jobs from China. But the president has not promised that if reelected he'd push for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to organize a union. He had supported it in the 2008 election but never moved the legislation once elected.
The president has also been noticeably silent on the labor struggles that have been roiling the Midwest -- from Wisconsin's assault on the bargaining rights of public employees, through Indiana's recently-enacted right to work law -- the first in the rust belt.
The fact is, American corporations -- both manufacturing and services -- are doing wonderfully well. Their third quarter profits totaled $2 trillion. That's 19 percent higher than the pre-recession peak five years ago.
But American workers aren't sharing in this bounty. Although jobs are slowly returning, wages continue to drop, adjusted for inflation.
The fundamental problem isn't the decline of American manufacturing, and reviving manufacturing won't solve it. The problem is the declining power of American workers to share in the gains of the American economy.
Robert Reich is the author of "http://www.amazon.com/Aftershock-Next-Economy-Americas-Future/dp/0307592812" target="_hplink">Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
We need to do it now. The politicians are all worrying about getting elected Creating mfg jobs in the US is not going to happen in time to save America.
Mitt and Obama know that this is not going to happen...so do all the rest...so drop all the BS and start telling the public the truth.
I also experience a serious entitlement problem with american job seekers,they want the first week off.Weird?
Not only did our government do nothing to stop the selling of America by the .1%, they actively encouraged it with tax breaks and incentives.
The robber barons and stock pushers bought politicians who enacted laws that put profits ahead of people; and, benefited the investors and only themselves.
It is now time to enact laws that benefit Americans who rely on their paychecks to maintain their quality of life.
America needs better education programs to compete globally, not a huge uneducated and unemployed underclass.
Consumerism has failed Americans; all it's done is make people greedy, materialistic and self-centered. Everyone needs to pay MORE taxes and the money needs to be invested in education, sewers, and road upgrading etc.
The US is still a large market and prosperity is possible for all. Buy American, pay your taxes and insist on getting corporate money out of the political process.
"Made in the World" labels
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/11/0930/madeintheworld.html
European TechnocratÂs May Soon Deprive Americans Of Knowing Where Everything They Buy Is Made
"The World Trade OrganizatiÂon, the OECD, the InternatioÂnal Chamber of Commerce and the European Commission are moving aggressiveÂly to eliminate "Country of Origin" labeling, claiming that it does not reflect the current structure of global trade. The Europe-basÂed organizatiÂons instead want to adopt a "Made in the World" logo for all products on the grounds that global supply chains have rendered country of origin labeling inaccurate and obsolete.
The intent of the proposal is to reduce public pressure on politicianÂs for protectionÂist trade policies..Â."
More at:
http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/miwi_e/miwi_e.htm
WTO | Made in the World
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/signs-of-dissent-what-about-the-47-who-pay-no-federal-income-taxes/246721/
Signs of Dissent: What About the 47% Who Pay No Federal Income Taxes? - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic
"...Who pays no federal income taxes? I think I have the picture you're looking for. This piechart shows the households paying no FIT, with all inset numbers in thousands of dollars (i.e.: 20-30 means $20,000 to $30,000). The big takeaway is that more than half of the folks who pay no federal income tax make less than $20,000 a year. It is also true that 7,000 millionaires paid no federal income tax last year (more on that factoid here)...."
Unfortunately, most suggested "solutions" to this problem aren't. As R.R. points out, a manufacturing comeback is not going to do it. - And Obama's targeting of manufacturing is just more give-aways to the rich at the, face it, expense of everyone else, because someone has to make up the lost revenue and payouts.
Another popular non-solution: educate everyone to the college degree level. We already have a plethora of almost worthless college degrees. There is no way to "educate everyone" without substantial further watering down of the degree. At the end, more money spent (big $$$ for this one), nothing accomplished.
I am a firm believer in unions, but am not sure that negotiating power can solve this problem.
I wish someone could come up with a good solution to this problem. If someone could just identify one, throwing lots of our personal money at it might solve OUR problems, $$$$-wise.
www.thevenusproject.com