Congress is now fighting over whether the Big Three U.S. automobile companies should get a bailout, but there’s a bigger battle going on in this country — the battle to keep blue collar and manufacturing jobs.
To hear some pundits, politicians and even average Joes lately, you’d think no one wants or respects jobs that require workers to work with their hands.
I just wrote about this for MSNBC.com and I was surprised by the flood of response so far from readers.
Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
Ron Maccari, who works at the Newport, Del., plant that makes GM’s Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice, thinks blue-collar work is getting a bum rap.
“If someone is producing something in this country, is making money and has a semi-decent house, we thumb our nose at them,” he said. “I read what they’re saying on blogs: ‘Let the auto industry die.’”
Maccari sees a growing movement in the United States to “disregard manufacturing, to eliminate it.”
Maccari’s not alone in his feelings.
“What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II,” conservative pundit Pat Buchanan said in a recent article published on WorldNetDaily.com. (Buchanan is a msnbc political analyst.)
Today only about 13 million people work in the manufacturing sector, down from nearly 18 million 10 years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite the decline in jobs, there are expected shortages of skilled production workers in a host of industries. These include everything from aerospace to medical manufacturing to products needed for infrastructure improvements and green industries favored by President-elect Barack Obama, says Patricia Lee, a spokeswoman with the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, a trade group.
A recent survey by the group found that the most serious concern about the sector, behind the cost of raw materials, was availability of skilled labor.
It’s a problem that is expected to get worse in the years ahead. But does this nation really want a manufacturing workforce? Do parents hope their kids follow a career path into U.S. factories?
Manufacturing has an image problem, many experts say.
Indeed, so many of us career writers never even think of blue-collar jobs when we’re offering advice. Some of my regular readers may notice that I just added a “manufacturing” category to this blog. (Sorry it took so long.)
I got this email from a reader just last week:
I noticed your column leans more toward the professional, white collar workers (over paid and underworked). Not many columns of interest geared toward the blue collar workers.
It’s not just that career writers don’t want to right about those that toil in plants, there sometimes seems to be a dearth of information out there. I’m working on a story right now about using cyber social networking to land a job, and almost every site I’m researching has little in the way of help for manufacturing professionals.
What do you all think? Is it OK if we lose all our blue-collar jobs? Should every American work in a office?
December 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I have to respectfully disagree with you on some points. You can lay the blame at Washington in that they absolutely allowed America’s corporations to move manufacturing capacity OUT of the United States to other countries. But you have to lay blame on the corporations themselves (and their shareholders) who moved the entire manufacturing capability of the United States to China, Malaysia, India, and everywhere else in the world except here.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the workers. There are lots of people in America that would love to have a good factory job - a good solid factory job. But someone tell me - what is made in the States anymore? Toasters, washers, dryers, light bulbs, textiles???? Keep going down the list and what is made here - even most of the bits and pieces of cars are made elsewhere and shipped here for some kind of assembly. I bought a log splitter this summer that proudly said “Assembled in the U.S.” However, you look in the manual, and the parts are actually made in China!
Nobody forced corporations to move all those jobs offshore. But we all allowed it. The government created a regulatory environment that didn’t stop corporations from moving jobs offshore. Consumers loved the fact that products were so inexpensive. The corporations and shareholders loved the huge profits that came from paying inexpensive overseas manufacturing costs. It was a beautiful party that has existed now for a decade or so.
But now the party’s over. It’s the next morning and we’ve awoken in bed with a terrible hangover and there’s someone in bed next to us that doesn’t look as good as they did the night before. The horrible feeling fills the pit of our stomach. “What have I done?” “How am I going to get myself out of this situation?” “Oh man, this is baaaaddddd…..”
December 10th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
You make some excellent points SomeGuy. U.S. companies moving their operations abroad pushed a lot of workers, who wanted to be in manufacturing, out of the loop.
But there also has been little attempts by our government to rein in the move overseas. Other countries impose higher tariffs on foreign goods coming into their countries, in part, to discourage their manufacturers from all running to other lands.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Manufacturing has changed. The many developers who write software code in Silicon Valley (and around the world) are ‘manufacturing’ products. But the products are far different from cars, phones, or printers - though all those things use software.
We need some balance between blue collar and white collar jobs - as well as between jobs available in the service and hardcore manufacturing industries. Many blue collar workers (think electricians and plumbers) earn more than their white collar counterparts.
There’s another side to manufacturing in the U.S. It speaks to our ability to be self-sufficient as a country. I think that’s an important part of the discussion, and a key reason why it’s important to have manufacturing jobs located in the U.S.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Isn’t Obama wanting to provide tax incentives for corporations to keep jobs in the U.S.? And do infrastructure projects to provide employment for at least some of the blue collar workers. And maybe the “green” initiative will open up new possibilities for all with “green collar” jobs.
December 12th, 2008 at 1:12 am
The most expensive piece of equipment salvaged from the US Steel Homestead Pennsylvania Plant was the Air Pollution Control Monitors that were, by law placed there in the early 70’s. I had the privilege of working there for the last four years of it’s existence and I saw these monitors salvaged at tremendous expense. My grandparents, yes a complete set of grandmother and grandfather had worked there too. You see during WW2 that plant employed about 20000 people, of which half were woman, so we could keep pure evil out of lives. No one cared and the new generation felt compelled to declare the black smoke spewing from it’s stacks unhealthy. WE used to call that smoke…prosperity. I knew people who were tired of washing their windows twice a day. I said this before and it is ignored…thank you idiot generation for allowing my 95 year old, one pack of cigarettes a day grandmother for keeping her alive so long.
Perhaps she will give up eggs and live to be 100. Thank you.
Our City of Pittsburgh is still here. We had about 750,000 people here in the 1960’s. We barely have 300,000 people here now. Thank you
I remember a story I read here about manhole covers being made in deplorable conditions in India, here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html?_r=1
These covers are sold to New York, Syracuse and New Orleans. This could very well be an act of treason. I know that is far fetched and somewhat ridiculous. However, who’s money is paying for those manhole covers?
I am sure India is as green as you can be. If that is what you want..go there and enjoy. DO NOT TREAD ON ME.