Commerce Department on free trade—steel imports; the claim is China is dumping inferior steel in the USA and has caused economic damage to the U.S. steel industry. The Commerce Department will make a decision on tariffs for this steel on July 11 of this year. The decision on steel will either make or break the U.S. steel industry or what is left in this country.
There have been steel plants shut down because of the lack of tariffs to protect our steel manufacturing. One of the largest battles at this time is in the Iron Range in Minnesota. The Minnesota governor Mark Dayton is saying the dumping of steel has been going on for 10 years. This is costing mill towns to just go dark and causes thousands of working families to go broke and lose everything they worked for.
A San Francisco bridge used cheap and inferior China-made steel, which was welded together by Chinese workers. The fact that it is Chinese is not the issue, the issue is corporations buying cheaper steel from another country and cheating its own country and workers of the work. This bridge job put 6,000 workers out of a job and gave it to Chinese workers who work for far less than they deserve and cheats our workers. A lot of this steel had to be replaced.
Our trade agreements need to be overhauled for the goods, such as steel, tires, and cars. The person who is at this time leading the fight for our American worker is John Garamendi of California. He has 57 senators supporting higher tariffs, but he needs more. If the workers do not win this tariff, the rippling effect will be devastating to our country.
Also, we need to ask the GOP if they want our tanks, aircraft and Humvees made with cheap and inferior steel and so do they want to be driving over bridges made with bad steel or working in high rise buildings, hospitals, and schools constructed from inferior steel. Do we want to endanger our sick and our children just so the greedy GOP oligarchies can make more money at the expense of our people?
The greedy blood sucking parasites with bad trade policies are just one way that they are killing our workers and our country. First it was steel, now they, the privatizers, want to privatize the water in the City of Detroit. There is no end to the attacks by the greedy soulless money grubbers.
I hope that I am wrong, but what I see at this time is our unions are going to be in the fight of their existence. This is the most perilous time of our life. The life we had is threatened like never before. Unions are the largest organized group of people who can save our country if things keep going the way they are heading at this time. We need to all stand together for power, but we each must prepare and plan to take care of ourselves and our families. We can fight the big fight and not be distracted by worry about things that can and should already be taken care of. For instance, stashing at least one month’s pay and at least a month or even a year’s worth of food, whether the food is staples (pasta, rice, canned goods) and meat or chicken in the freezer. Keep your vehicles' tanks full and if possible a gas can full. It’s in your best interest to also save money for house or rent payments plus extra. This is not new thinking for us old trade workers who had to prepare when...
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