US Chamber Of Commerce against Made In USA provisions

The concept it (US Chamber of Commerce) fails to grasp is that there already is a trade war and the United States is being severely beaten.-Craig Harrington from video

The US Chamber of Commerce is a private group and is not a Federal agency, they lobby for the needs of the largest US corporations.

Besides being completely anti-union and staunchly against The Employee Free Choice Act, the US Chamber Of Commerce is one of the biggest lobbyist of unadulterated free trade. It is very unfortunate because the idea behind the Chamber of Commerce would be a good one if they just weren’t trying to rape the American public and workforce. This is in no way a slight to the more favorable regional Chamber’s who’s members are local businesses, but on the top, the US COC, the needs of the Wal-Mart’s, the McDonald’s, the Home Depot’s and their like minded ilk are priority number one.

Video is from an article at Economy in crisis entitled “Chamber of Commerce Leading Congress Astray“

Video Link for my text readers

The economics policy institutes adds in “Big business lobbies for importers”

Multinational companies such as General Electric and Caterpillar, and their allies in the Chamber of Commerce, are attacking “Buy American” provisions included in the economic recovery bill passed by the House on January 28^th. They claim that these provisions will provoke a “trade war” with foreign governments, but foreign governments have long histories of supporting their own domestic companies. These companies are self-interested, simply wanting unlimited access to imports, many of which are illegally subsidized and unfairly traded. U.S. and foreign multinational companies (MNCs) were responsible for nearly two-thirds of all U.S. imports in 2006, as shown in the chart below. U.S. firms led the way with $678 billion in imports, 36.4% of all U.S. goods imports. Foreign MNCs pulled in an additional $482.4 billion in goods, 25.6% of the U.S. import bill.

Companies like Caterpillar, which will benefit from billions of dollars of infrastructure spending in the stimulus package, want unfettered access to cheap steel from countries like China, which poured more than $15 billion into energy subsidies into that sector in 2007 alone. Chinese steel imports more than doubled between January and November, while U.S. steel production fell nearly 40%. The Chamber of Commerce, which also opposes further “Buy American” provisions, represents the interests of U.S. companies like Caterpillar and IBM as well as foreign multinationals like Toyota and Siemens, all represented on its board of directors. Congress has finally realized that what’s good for big business is not always good for America, and that new rules are needed to rein in runaway corporations. That’s real progress.

Here’s a tidbit from “U.S. Corporations Against Buying American“

“Free trade” has only served to allow the nation’s trade deficit to explode to uncontrollable levels, killed jobs, armed economic rivals with the means to buy up American assets and businesses and allowed our shores to be invaded with toxic products from Third World nations.

gspencer writes in a comment to “Chamber of Commerce Leading Congress Astray“

“United States Chamber of Commerce:“
I really believe that we must preserve the economic miracle that has given our citizens one of the highest living standards in the world. This economic miracle has not been due to the efforts of the members of the US Chamber of Commerce, who include Importers, middlemen, Wall Street criminals, Stock Market Gamblers, Real Estate Speculators, Economists, Insurance Salesmen, Junk Bond Salesmen, etc., and very few firms that contribute to correcting our balance of trade. Todays USA standard of living was created by the Agricultural and Industrial Base that produced the food, goods, services and other items that we consumed, plus an excess of these goods & services that were produced and then sold to other foreign countries in order to accumulate the US gold reserves through a positive balance of trade surplus payments. Our gold reserves are the basis of the value or buying power of our currency. This was (is) true of all of the currencies in the world.

Only a positive balance of trade will restore the value of the dollar, and we must accomplish this by any means possible, or accept third world poverty on a large scale basis. Riots and insurrection are predictable, ala the French Revolution, when the people find their situations economically hopeless.

Big thanks to Mainstream Populist Democrats for the head’s up on the video and the site:

Just wrong on so many levels

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Wal-Mart closes only union department in North America

Unreal, finally a few workers became union in Wal-Mart, so they closed the section. Wal-Mart is a disgrace!

From PR Newswire:

Wal-Mart Watch Responds to Wal-Mart’s Closure of Unionized Tire and Lube Express in Gatineau, Canada

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In response to Wal-Mart’s closure of the recently unionized Gatineau, Quebec Tire and Lube Express, Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director David Nassar released the following statement:

“Wal-Mart’s closure of the recently unionized Tire and Lube Express auto shop in Gatineau, Quebec shows how Wal-Mart is willing to do anything to keep its workers from receiving better wages, decent benefits or fairer
working conditions. The Gatineau workers have merely exercised their human rights under Canadian Law, something that is clearly unacceptable to Wal-Mart.

“Later today, Wal-Mart Watch will launch a new web site which features the real stories of Wal-Mart employees who are suffering under Wal-Mart’s low-wage, low-benefit business model.

“The closure in Canada clearly shows that Wal-Mart has no desire to change.”

Fuck you Wal-Mart, you are a huge reason that the American people are having hard financial problems and you had led they way to giving our jobs oversea’s.

More headlines from Labourstart

• Quebec Wal-Mart to close unionized auto shop [The Star]
• Quebec Wal-Mart Closes Tire Centre After Labor Accord [Bloomberg]
• Quebec Wal-Mart shuts Gatineau union shop [The Gazette]
• Quebec Wal-Mart closes auto shop after union win [Reuters]
• Quebec Wal-Mart Canada shuts another location after workers unionize [UFCW]
• Quebec Wal-Mart closes unionized shop [The Globe and Mail]
• Quebec Wal-Mart closes shop where union contract imposed [CBC]
• Quebec Wal-Mart Watch Responds to Wal-Mart’s Closure of Unionized Tire and Lube Express in Gatineau [Wal-Mart Watch]

Found denim bibs Made In USA, and they are expanding here in the USA

Everyone else has moved operations overseas. “It’s created a niche for us … a lot of people still want products make in the United States.” – Jim Antosh, owner Round House Workwear

I agree. This is the only denim work bib that I have found still made in the USA, and according to the article below, it is the only one left.

Carhartt only has a few items still union made in the USA, 10 to be exact, they don’t make any denim work bib’s for all of my pipefitter, steamfitter, carpenter and iron worker friends.

Round House Brand Workwear

For over 105 years, Round House Workware has been making high quality denim work bib’s.

Thay are actually opening a new factory right here in the United States, got this info from the Railroad Workers United site which had a link to this article from NewsOK, published on 10/01/08:

Denim plant finds fit in Wewoka (Oklahoma-Joe)
Shawnee company finds new site outside hometown
By Debbie Blossom

When business owner Jim Antosh wanted to expand his manufacturing company and hire additional staff, he found few takers in Shawnee, where Round House Manufacturing has been stitching up sturdy denim workwear and jeans for more than a century.

With a tight labor pool and no workers with the skills to operate commercial sewing machines, Antosh went searching in nearby communities for a site and employees to sew together some of the company’s denim that is precut at the Shawnee plant.

Forty miles away in Wewoka, Antosh said he found suitable space and a partnership of city, state, education and economic development officials willing to help turn his expansion into a reality.

“It’s a little unique,” he said of planning an addition in another town. “But the city of Wewoka was so helpful, and so eager, and they had the space.”

Still made in the U.S.
Round House is the sole overalls producer left in the United States, and about the only jeans maker in the country, Antosh said. Everyone else has moved operations overseas. “It’s created a niche for us … a lot of people still want products make in the United States.”

Demand remains brisk for the Round House brand, which includes work overalls for painters, engineers, carpenters and laborers that come in different colors. There are overalls for kids, caps and aprons. And the brand is worn by Disney World railroad conductors and has been seen on celebrities such as Jessica Simpson and Donald Trump.

Yet despite the company’s successful longevity, “It’s not easy to start from scratch,” he said.

What he found in Wewoka was a joint venture between city officials and Rural Enterprises of Oklahoma Inc., a Durant-based economic development organization.

City officials had invested $90,000 to renovate a vacant, 100,000-square-foot former apparel plant and divided the space to accommodate several businesses.

The Oklahoma Commerce Department and REI were advised on the building’s availability, said Mark Mosley, Wewoka’s city manager.

At least $55,000 went into windows, new flooring and walls, electrical work and air conditioning for Round House, he said.

People looking to work closer to home, and fewer employers needing workers also helped entice Round House to expand away from Shawnee, Mosley said.

Antosh said further encouragement came from the state’s career tech program, which helped reimburse some of the cost of training new employees.

You can find Round House items for sale by using their Store Locator, or online at:

• Cavender’s Boot City
• Evan’s Outfitter’s
• Langston’s

Made In America Video featuring RoundHouse

• “Made in America” Part 1
• “Made in America” Part 2
• “Made in America” Part 3

I just got off the phone with owner Jim Antosh, it was a very pleasant conversation, we spoke of the history of Round House and the history of Shawnee, Oklahoma. It was a huge railroad town with what was known as a “round house”, a station where steam locomotive’s, which were optimized for forward mobility, to be turned around. Jim spoke of the fact that the textile association that he belonged to was amazed that he was expanding operations here in the states, they said he was the first that they know of in a decade. I also mentioned my need for “button snapped” denim shirts, he assured me that if all goes well they may consider them in the future, but insisted that anything they make must take time in the creation, so that they can proudly put their logo on the product, with the assurance that it is tough enough in stregnth and quality to bear the Round House name.

I offered Jim any assistance in getting the word out about their products and he thanked me and told me to get in touch any time I have any questions.

I also spoke to someone at TYCA, another American company who makes denim and leather goods, I had called once before and asked if they could make some denim quick snap 10oz. welder shirts for my fellow construction workers, they are still waiting for a prototype to finish being designed. Tyca also embosses denim and leather and all of their product’s are union made, by IAM Machinist’s in the USA.

Support American families, buy American made!

Big thanks to Railroad Worker’s United for posting this up on their site

Sunday Movie Review: Zeitgeist Addendum

“We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”- James Paul Warburg appearing before the Senate on 7th February 1950

Take it as you will, this is the second part to the Zeitgeist Movie, available free for anyone with a computer. As a friend of mines father said about the first movie, if only 1% of it is true the world is a fu@ked up place.

The first movie goes through the gamut of the history of religion, the idea of 9/11 being a false flag operation, the history of the privatization of the US banking system via the Federal Reserve, one world Government, the North American Union and the New World Order. Along the way there is a hypnotic soundtrack which features video clips and audio from the movie Network, Bill Hicks, Lou Dobbs, Martin Luther King, George Carlin, among others, and quotes like the one posted above.

Like I say, you can see it for many reasons, I watched it with some friends last year while the NY Jets were doing really crappy, and I did learn a lot about the Federal Reserve and religion. As far as the 9/11 stuff, that is up to you to sift through. The squeamish may even chose to skip through the section if they so choose. Was it worth it, definitely better than watching your run of the mill Hollywood junk, a lot better than watching the Jets get pummeled.

The first movie gets a whopping 8.7 out of 10 stars from almost 7,000 voters at IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and the most helpful comment I read was by The Goat:

Very compelling, definitely don’t believe everything you hear, do your own research!
I’ve watched this movie about 4 times by now, will definitely watch it again as i show it to others. Many interesting arguments, many good points.

While this film is aimed to prove everything presented as truth, one should watch this with an open mind. Take in all the topics, then do your own research, just with any speaker/film/presentation. To blindly follow is pure ignorance.

I do not believe everything in this film. I do however think that everyone should see it if nothing more than a thought experiment. You should be aware of all sides of an argument as to make your argument more effective.

Link to the original: ZeitgeistMovie

Here’s Part 2, which starts off real slow, but gets interesting when they talk about the monetary system and Corporations, it speaks of free trade and sweatshops, Wal-Mart and Bechtel, there’s some talk about how profit rules over people and while the first movie left you with a sense of fear, this movie seeks answers to get our world on the right track.

Chalk this up as very interesting, at least in my book, and a lot better if you watch part 1 first. Is there truth in this movie or is this wingnut conspiracy stuff? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Absolutely a great view if your pissed about the bailout.

Blue Pill/Red Pill?

Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
(In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.)
Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (a red pill is shown in his other hand) You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Long pause; Neo begins to reach for the red pill) Remember — all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.
(Neo takes the red pill and swallows it with a glass of water)

Employee Free Choice Act- cutting through the suffocating atmosphere of threats, intimidation and illegal firings…

Here’s a great article I read at Campaign For America’s Future

Education Is Great, But We Need More Unions
By Amy Traub, September 18th, 2008

The American Dream is a middle-class dream. We occasionally fantasize about striking it rich or becoming famous, but Americans mostly aim to achieve and hold onto a middle-class standard of living. When the fundamentals of middle-class life — jobs that pay enough to support a family, access to health care, a safe and stable home, time off work for vacation and major life events, a good education for our children, and a dignified retirement — are within the reach of most Americans, the nation is stronger economically, culturally and democratically.

Today the nation’s middle class is squeezed between rising prices for staples like gasoline, food and health care, and stagnant wages that don’t keep up. Plummeting housing prices have undermined the value of the single biggest asset most middle-class families own and millions risk losing their homes to foreclosure. The time-honored middle-class survival strategies: send more family members into the workforce, work longer hours, borrow more, and save less, are reaching their limits. Middle-class families are forced to tap into their retirement savings to afford a college education for their children. It is harder to get ahead, most Americans say, and easier to fall behind. We are moving away from an economy that enables working people to enjoy a middle-class standard of living. How can we reverse course?

We need to create an economy in which more American jobs support a middle-class standard of living. To do that, working people – from janitors to journalists – need more power in the labor market.

Some offer increased access to education and (re)training as a solution to securing middle-class jobs in competitive global labor markets. And yes, the public sector should increase support for public colleges and provide more generous grants to students so that young people can more easily attend college and older workers can acquire new skills. But education alone won’t solve the economic problems underlying the middle-class squeeze.

If it were, college graduates would be doing better. And while educated workers are more likely than those without a degree to enjoy a middle-class standard of living, wages for most college graduates have grown sluggishly in recent years and their access to employer-provided health care and pensions has dropped.

And then there are the tens of millions of Americans who work at jobs that don’t require a college degree. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that retail sales, food service, home health aides, janitors, laborers and landscapers will be among the occupations with the most available jobs by 2016. These occupations, as much as financial analysts or software engineers, are the jobs of the future. What are we doing to ensure that these jobs can enable working people to live the American Dream?

Today, if you are a child-care worker or security guard (both also among the next decade’s most in-demand occupations), you are likely receiving low pay and poor benefits. But history tells us that it doesn’t have to be that way. In the early 20th century, when the booming manufacturing sector offered dangerous, low-paid work on assembly lines and factory floors, a wave of union organizing and bargaining lifted wages and improved benefits and working conditions. Those formerly awful manufacturing jobs have become the good jobs we now lament losing to overseas competition. To a large extent, today’s modern middle class is a legacy of those union advances, which set the standard for gains like employer-sponsored health coverage, pensions and paid vacation.

Economists at the Economic Policy Institute point out that event though productivity grew briskly in the most recent economic recovery, hourly compensation didn’t keep up – even for those with a college degree. Instead, corporate profits ate up a record share of the nation’s gross domestic product. Despite relatively low unemployment, employees don’t have enough power in the labor market to secure wages and salaries commensurate with the economic growth they help create. This is largely because today’s labor movement is a shadow of its former strength – representing a mere 7.5 percent of private sector employees. Unions have historically been a potent vehicle for working people to exert labor market leverage. To make the economy work for working people and rebuild the middle class, they must become one again.

No public policy would do more to revitalize the labor movement than the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007 and killed by a Senate filibuster. The legislation would streamline the process for organizing unions and bargaining a first contract, cutting through the suffocating atmosphere of threats, intimidation and illegal firings that prevent so many working people from joining a union today.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a game-changer, directly attacking the systemic problem of employees’ lack of power in the labor market. The impact would boost low-wage service employees struggling to gain a middle-class standard of living as well as college-educated professionals trying to hold onto it. We can legislate universal health care, mandate paid sick days, raise the minimum wage or subsidize take-home pay with the earned income tax credit, but empowering people to join unions directly redistributes economic power back to working people, enabling Americans to win gains for themselves in the workplace. This isn’t to say that some or all of these benefits shouldn’t be written into law as well – in fact, a strengthened labor movement might also help build political will for those reforms – but rather that this legislation changes the balance of power in a way that many other reforms don’t.

Globalization is the elephant in the parlor. International competition poses a formidable challenge to workers’ ability to exercise power in the labor market. Some are rightly concerned that raising wages and improving American jobs will encourage employers to move even more jobs overseas. But accepting ever-declining standards in a desperate bid to hold onto employment is a losing game for everyone. Instead, strengthening and expanding the middle class will ultimately require changing the balance of power worldwide – using international alliances and trade agreements to improve workplace standards everywhere. This isn’t an easy proposition. But reclaiming some power in our own workplaces is the necessary first step.

Thanks Amy, I spotted this when I got a link to another important story at Campaign For America’s Future, entitled “Where’s Our Bailout?“. Big thanks to The Man Common for squeezing out all the great sites for stories that matter, and opening our eyes to them.

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Be one in a million

There are now over 690,000 signatures that will be handed to our new President and Congress when they take office, be one in a million, click the image on the right and add your signature

Who’s Against American workers and The Employee Free Choice Act
Wow, there’s a lot, click the image below to find out who.

Battle in Seattle is the film Big Hollywood does not want you to see, starts tonight!

50,000 union members led the charge
Even after receiving great reviews, no big movie corporation would distribute this film. An independent studio, Redwood Palms Pictures, picked up the film and is working hard to get it seen broadly.

I recall the Main Stream painting the protesters as a bunch of lunatics, while according to my recollection there were well look at where we are now thanks to the WTO’s war on the majority of the worlds population.

DEMAND Showings in you area

I would like to thank Donna from Teamsters Local 237 here in New York for getting me this info, I desperately would like to see this film, you can help by demanding that it be shown in you area

Trailer

From the Who controls the world:

When 50,000 union members led the charge on a rainy November 30, 1999 in Seattle to speak truth to the power of the world’s biggest corporations, history was made. A devastating plan to expand the WTO’s power and the reign of corporate globalization over our lives was derailed.

Common Sense on Media notes:

Families can talk about the many social, political, and economic topics that the film raises, from concerns about corporate control of the media to the environmental ramifications of modern industry. Families can also discuss whether a film like this is made to provide answers or provoke questions. Do you think the filmmakers are playing favorites in their arguments and scenes? Is it OK for movies based on real-life events to have a particular bias toward one “side” or the other?

Battle in Seattle opens in select cities on September 19. If the opening theaters are packed for the film’s first two weeks, it will get a national distribution – turning on a new generation to the joy, fun and power of the Seattle Spirit through the pleasures of a great film. You can show Hollywood that there is a real interest in films that celebrate the fighting spirit of working people.

Here’s what Union City, The Metro DC Labor Council has to say:

“MOVIES CAN CHANGE THE WORLD”: “I’m not sure that a single movie can change the world, but movies can change the world,” actor-turned-director Stuart Townsend tells Union City. His new film Battle in Seattle, a drama about the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization, opens tonight in Washington. The film, which stars Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron, Ray Liotta, Andre Benjamin and Michelle Rodriguez, is being independently produced and distributed. “I wanted to make a film that will inspire people,” Townsend told Union City in a recent phone interview from California. “This film is not about politics, it’s about people; people who want good jobs, a clean environment and a economic system that puts people above profits. It’s about a moment when ordinary people stood up to the powers that be, and won. Seattle was a rare victory; it’s not often that the little guy wins, and for a whole week the world was watching.” Townsend’s pleased that the DC Labor FilmFest has included the local Battle screenings in this year’s line-up, noting that his effort is designed “to show Hollywood that there is a real interest in films that celebrate the fighting spirit of working people.” Click here for the full interview with Townsend.

Here’s some classic footage

Battle in Seattle showtimes for New York, NY – Trailer ‎1hr 38min‎ – ‎Rated R‎ – ‎Action/Adventure/Drama‎ – 8 reviews:
	Lincoln Plaza Cinemas – 30 Lincoln Plaza, New York, NY – Map 11:05am 1:05 3:10 5:30 7:50 10:05pm Angelika Film Center – 18 West Houston, New York, NY – Map 11:00am 1:15 3:30 5:45 8:00 10:35pm

You can read more at Who Controls The World

Video: Barack Obama on issues that matter to American workers

Originally posted by Richard Negri at Union Review

Barney Smith American worker