(The following article by Stephanie Franken was published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on May 2.)
PITTSBURGH — All of Jay Bormann’s guide-dog trainers belong to a union. When he shops, he looks for American-made products.
“I buy very few things that aren’t made in America,” said Bormann, the director of Guide Dogs of America, a nonprofit organization based in Sylmar, Calif., and funded through the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
“I care about it every minute of my life.”
Bormann could be the poster child for this weekend’s AFL-CIO Union Industries Show at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. The show, which runs from today until Monday and is open from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. daily, aims to show visitors the array of products that are still available in the United States. It encourages them to buy union-made goods and services and raffles motorcycles, haircuts and lawn mowers.
Nationwide, people like Bormann have become less common. A way of life for previous generations, buying American has become more difficult and less common as a global economy takes hold.
Show representatives express alarm about the trend, fearing the entire U.S. economy could come unhinged. Others say their views are misguided.
“People are spoiled now,” said Bill Reitz of Ypsilanti, Mich., a member of United Autoworkers Local 735, who will display car transmissions this weekend. “They don’t want to take the time to look for American-made products.”
And for the past 20 to 30 years, it has become increasingly difficult to find American goods, said Charles E. Mercer, president of the Union Label & Service Trades department of the AFL-CIO.
“A lot of manufacturers have moved offshore to find cheaper labor. As stockholders demand higher profits, clothing manufacturers are moving offshore. But the cost for garments to U.S. consumers remains the same.”
Erik Autor, vice president and international trade counsel for the Retail Federation of America in Washington, D.C., agrees that more companies are moving offshore, especially to make clothing and shoes.
But he believes the American economy is stronger as a consequence of more foreign imports. “The wealthiest countries in the world have been trading countries. That’s a basic tenet of economics.”
And consumers do benefit from international trade with lower prices, he said.
Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation in Washington, said shoppers look first to price and quality when buying, not country of origin. His organization, an umbrella for 300 consumer groups, is neutral when it comes to buying American. Some people may even choose not to buy American as a matter of principle, but more seek American products, he said.
Union representatives, who cite the figure of 65,000 jobs lost monthly in the United States over the past two years, say such losses create a domino effect that weakens the economy. That’s why shoppers need to vote with their dollars and buy American, said Matt Bates, secretary treasurer of the Union Label and Service Department of the AFL-CIO.
When a single, $20-an-hour union job in the United States goes to a foreign country where workers get paid $3 a day, many people suffer, Mercer said.
“That $20-an-hour job provides a lot of good revenue for the government,” he said. It generates tax revenue that supports schools, police stations and fire stations. Plus, a worker who is paid a livable wage keeps the economy strong by purchasing other goods and services.
The Retail Federation argues that imports create jobs, too — often better, higher-paying jobs that employ longshoremen, truckers, railroad workers, auto dealers and salespeople, for instance.
Plus, offshore factories can only be blamed so much: technology has revolutionized American manufacturing more than the trend toward offshore plants. For instance, sweater producers often use giant knitting machines where almost no human labor is required. American workers today, like workers in any modern country, need new skills to survive.
“I don’t think you’ve got a one-to-one correlation that just because a job is created in Honduras that a job is lost in the United States,” Autor said.
Still, Bates is unswerving in his belief that the purchasing power of Americans — the quality of life in this nation — continues to erode as factories and jobs exit the country.
“This is not just a nationalistic, jingoistic thing,” he said of the union show’s push to buy American. “It’s common sense, a matter of survival.”