BOARDMAN - Hoping to reverse the trend of continued job losses in manufacturing, more than a dozen researchers, employers and retirees discussed ways Tuesday to level the playing field between U.S. firms and their foreign counterparts.
"We can't compete with companies in China, Mexico and other countries that can pay their workers only a few dollars a day and do not have to follow the same environmental and other regulations that U.S. manufacturers must follow," David W. Johnson, owner and president of Summitville Tiles of southeast Columbiana County said.
Johnson was among those who gathered Tuesday morning for a live radio broadcast on WKBN 570 AM about the state of manufacturing. The program was part of the Alliance for American Manufacturing's nine-city 2008 "Keep it Made in American Town Hall" tour.
A third-generation owner of a specialty tile manufacturing company, Johnson said regulations administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and others prevent him from investing into the family business.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing is a Washington, D.C.-based organization that tries to bring together people from labor and management groups to discuss the role of manufacturing in the United States. It has held seven town hall meeting and a presidential forum that featured Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill. Republican nominee, Sen. John MaCain of Arizona, was invited, but decided not to attend.
Scott Paul, executive director of Alliance for American Manufacturing, suggests that the U.S. economy must be diversified to include jobs in high-tech, health, service and manufacturing sectors. However, Paul said manufacturing must be at the core of any economic revival.
"The strength of manufacturing lies in the fact that it creates three to four other jobs for every manufacturing position created," Paul said. "There is no other job field (with) that ... ratio of job creation."
He further claimed that although the production of manufacturing products are at an all-time high, statistics show the number of people working in manufacturing is at an all-time low.
"We have fewer people doing more," he said.
Strengthening the future of manufacturing will depend on finding people able to do the increasingly technical skills needed to make manufactured products, said John Russo, co-director of YSU's Center for Working Class Studies.
"We have companies out here that are saying they cannot find people with the skills to do the jobs they have," Russo said. "Jobs have changed. There is a higher level of skills that are needed."
Often those young people who obtain the skills needed for the new manufacturing jobs leave the area in search for more opportunities and better pay.
Sherry Linkon, also a co-director of the center, says it has become increasingly difficult to attract young people to manufacturing fields because school guidance counselors have given up steering young people toward careers in manufacturing.
"People do not understand the nature of the jobs available," she said. "After the last few years, they do not have faith the jobs are going to stay."
