Price of steel is such a boring subject; but I remember when all the
flack began about the WTO meeting and people spoke of jobs going to
Mexica and Chinese imports flooding the market, Clinton said "hey, there
are a lot of cheap goods out there for you to buy".
So fine - I like good cheap quality goods - but if you do not have a job
how you going to buy it?
Clinton's idea of solving problem was to give Steel Companies a 300
million dollar tax break? Thought only a Congress could do that.
Trafficante is from the Youngstown area - and today these once thriving
citiies look like ghost towns.....time to build and a time to tear down,
but they are building in Mexico and around the world so we can have
"cheap" products? What logic......a billionaire pays the same for his
food as parents of children living in a slum.
So - where were the Unions when big business and CFR NWO sold them out?
Well some were sitting in CFR meetings as full fledged members........
Saba
Current Issue Archives Labor Party Home Join the Labor Party!
Clinton to
Steelworkers:
"Too Bad!"
USWA President George Becker denounces Clinton trade policy at the LP
Convention. Photo ©Michael Kaufman, Impact Visuals
Several thousand Ohio Valley steelworkers marched to Bill Clinton's
doorstep on January 20, angry at the administration's failure to stanch
the flood of cheap steel imports that have caused thousands of
steelworkers to be laid off in recent months.
This struggle has a history. For over a year, the Steel Workers union
has lobbied and cajoled the President. They came up with a whole set of
recommendations to deal with the problem. They filed complaints with the
U.S. Commerce Department charging that Japan, Brazil, and Russia were
violating international trade laws against "dumping."
Finally, in early January, Bill Clinton announced he had a plan: He
would give a $300 million tax break to U.S. steel companies over the
next five years.
The Steelworkers were irate. In a letter to Clinton, United Steel
Workers of America president George Becker asked, "What will $300
million in tax breaks do for steelworkers' families, whose dreams of a
decent life are being crushed...or for those communities which will be
devastated when these mills go down?
We do not need tax breaks for the steel industry, nor do we need a pat
on the head and a special pass to move us to the front of the
unemployment line."
"We knew Bill Clinton was a big 'free trader' back when we first got him
elected," says United Steel Workers of America spokesman Gary Hubbard.
But with an estimated 20,000 U.S. steelworkers laid off or cut back in
the past few months, the union expected more from a Democratic
president.
Back in 1992, when then-candidate Clinton was looking for votes in the
Ohio Valley, he promised steelworkers there he would enforce
anti-dumping laws. "I think it's fair to say that he lied to the Ohio
Valley," Mark Glyptis of the Independent Steelworkers told the marchers
on January 20. Clinton, he added, "has done virtually nothing for the
American steelworker" since coming to office. [Trafficante where were
you........this is another big like by Pinnochio]
Clinton likes to tell U.S. workers to become "more competitive in the
global economy." And ironically, probably no basic U.S. industry is as
"competitive" as steel today. After a wrenching period of cutbacks
brought on by global competition and technological change, the U.S.
steel industry is now a relatively low-cost supplier of steel. It
produces more steel than before, with a fraction of the workforce. But
apparently that contraction wasn't sufficient to satisfy the demands of
the global market.
The recent layoffs are mostly the result of the
Asian economic crisis. Because of bad economic conditions, steel
producers in Japan, Korea, Brazil, and Russia aren't able to sell all
their steel domestically, and so they "dump" steel on the U.S. market at
prices that don't even cover the cost of production. Japanese steel
shipments increased more than 400 percent in the first nine months of
1998. Sales of U.S. steel have dropped, and as a result, workers have
been laid off in droves. Some are predicting that up to 85,000
steelworkers — about half the nation's steel workforce — could be
laid off if the imports aren't restricted.
What the union wants, explains Hubbard, is an emergency restraint on
steel imports to bring the level back to what it was before the economic
crisis began, in July 1997. Then, imports represented about 20 percent
of the U.S. steel market. Today, imports account for 50 percent of the
market. The union says such a restraint would only be temporary. It
could be lifted once the union's complaints had been heard.
The union had cooperated with steel companies in asking for import
restrictions. But Clinton, true to form, ignored workers' pleas and
decided instead to help out the companies.
The Clinton administration, the world's top cheerleader for the right of
global capital to do whatever it wants, is afraid that putting any
limits on imports would signal a lack of openness to multinational
corporations. In fact this was the theme of USWA President
Becker's address before the Labor Party's First Constitutional
Convention back in November. "We need to raise the level of debate on
trade in this country," he told the delegates. "Will trade serve the
interests of Wall Street or Main Street?"
Labor Party
Press
Online
March, 1999
Labor Party
Press Index
MAIN STORY
Don't Blow Away
Social Security
Capitol Hill
Shop Steward
A Tale of Two Citizens
Healthcare
Bleeding Medicare
Clinton to Steelworkers:
"TOO BAD!"
Labor Party
Recruiting Tales & Other Short Takes
Huck/Konopacki
Labor Cartoons IV
Plucky Pair's
Punchy Picks
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