Labor & Employment Law

The BP Disaster-China Connection

By James Parks

A bipartisan poll shows the majority of voters believe the nation?s economy is no longer the strongest economy in the world and we need an aggressive national manufacturing strategy to regain our pre-eminent position. Here?s one reason why. When the blow-out preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig needed to be modified, it was sent to China, according to the UK?s Guardian newspaper.

Pointing out the BP disaster-China connection, Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), says:

Wow. If China can’t keep cadmium and lead out of children’s bracelets, it’s hard to understand why BP?flush with profits?would trust a Chinese firm to overhaul a key component in the Deepwater Horizon rig simply to save money. This is, after all, a life or death issue for oil rig workers. If the modification in China led to the failure of the blow-out preventer, what a monumental miscalculation it was, costing lives and causing our nation’s most severe environmental disaster.

America’s workers and businesses can certainly make blow-out preventers, as well as thousands of other manufactured products, Paul says. But for too long, our government has neglected or ignored the nation?s critical manufacturing sector.

Now, with unemployment at decades-high levels, calls for a national strategy to make more things in America are coming from all corners?from business, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party members, progressives and independents. So, Paul says, what is Congress waiting for?

 So let’s get to it. Congress, pass a manufacturing strategy, and reverse what Harold Meyerson has called an American “anti-industrial policy.”  

Click here to read Paul?s post ?Made In America” at Huffington Post.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).