Getting Manufacturing Competitiveness Right

Leslie is joined by Roy Houseman, Legislative Director for the United Steelworkers.

The two discuss how to get manufacturing competitiveness right.

The United States used to be on the cutting edge of manufacturing innovation, but declining investment and decades of bad trade deals left the country at a competitive disadvantage, resulting in:

- Plummeting numbers of good, manufacturing jobs. (The BLS calculates that manufacturing employment fell from 19.6 million in 1979 to 12.8 million in 2019 – down 35 percent)
- Fractured communities. This has particularly hurt Black, Brown and other workers of color.
- And increasing reliance on foreign nations for critical goods.

It’s long been clear that we need comprehensive legislation to better compete with China and other nations, regrow our critical supply chains and invest in manufacturing now and into the future.

There are currently two bills – one in the House and one in the Senate – that are aimed at helping the United States stay competitive against China and protect workers against greedy multi-national corporations who seek out low wage and illegal subsidies in foreign countries.

- The Senate bill is the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA).
- The House bill is America COMPETES Act (COMPETES).

The bills will soon go to conference so Congress can reconcile the differences between the two versions. While both bills make important investments in U.S. technology, only the House version has meaningful changes for workers and manufacturing employers.

Roy details these meaningful changes during the interview.

The website for the United Steelworkers is www.USW.org and their Twitter handle is @steelworkers.
Roy's handle is @RoyHouseman.