×

Shipbuilding essential to US

Thank you, Sen. Brown, for taking the helm on shipbuilding.

I served five years in the U.S. Marine Corps, maintaining radar packages on the warplanes based aboard aircraft carriers.

That experience left me with deep respect not only for my fellow service members in the Navy but for the American workers who manufacture the aluminum, steel and other components that go into the vessels our sailors take to sea.

Many sailors told me they sail into harm’s way with profound trust in ships put together by the most highly skilled and dedicated workers in the world.

Sadly, America continues to lose shipbuilding and maintenance capacity amid China’s campaign to undercut foreign competitors and seize control of worldwide shipbuilding and logistics networks. We’ve lost tens of thousands of jobs, closed dozens of shipyards and become dangerously dependent on China, so it’s essential to bring back our shipbuilding industry with all due speed.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, a champion of American workers and fair trade, gets this. He was among the first elected officials to support my union, the United Steelworkers (USW), in demanding a federal investigation into China’s predatory shipbuilding practices and in making an urgent call for revitalizing our domestic industry. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai launched that investigation — into the illegal subsidies and other illicit aid that China provides its shipbuilders — in April.

Brown also understands that it’s just as important to strengthen shipbuilding supply chains — to produce the glass, motors, and other goods used to construct ships — as it is to bring back the shipyards themselves.

Right now, America needs to ramp up capacity both to supply the Navy and to build the commercial vessels used to trade with the world.

“Chinese state-owned enterprises and other facilities in the PRC are now capable of producing over 1,000 ocean-going vessels a year, while the United States currently produces fewer than 10,” Brown and a handful of colleagues warned last spring in a letter to Tai, noting that China’s unfair trade practices resulted in “25,000 domestic shipbuilding suppliers leaving the U.S. market over the past 20 years.”

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, recently called for letting some of America’s allies take on maintenance of Navy ships because of the decayed state of our facilities.

But Emanuel’s proposal would make our perilous dependence on foreign shipbuilders far worse.

Nothing must distract us from rebuilding our own industry as quickly as possible — or we’ll continue to delay action and become more complacent about leaving our security in others’ hands.

Having served on a naval base in Japan, I can say without reservation that our service members want American workers making the steel, forging the bulkheads and welding the rivets on our fleet.

Fortunately, Brown understands this, too. As Tai’s investigation unfolds, he’s pursuing other efforts to grow jobs in shipbuilding and related fields.

For example, he’s seeking federal support for Bartlett Maritime Corp.’s proposal to build submarine component repair facilities in Ohio. He’s backing the USW on trade cases, helping to preserve U.S. production of aluminum extrusions and other products critical to shipbuilding and other industries. And he’s sponsoring legislation to expand the use of biofuels in ships, opening a growing industry to Ohio farmers.

Make no mistake, American workers want to supply the shipbuilding industry. I know because I’m now one of them.

After leaving the Marines, I took a job at Hunt Valve in Salem, a decision I made partly because of the company’s mission supplying the Navy. My USW co-workers and I stand ready to do more work for our armed forces and to supply commercial shipbuilding facilities as well.

We just need more members of Congress to follow Brown’s lead and get on board with efforts to bring back American shipbuilding.

James Crawford is president of USW Local 3372-07, representing workers at Hunt Valve.

Starting at $2.99/week.

Subscribe Today