Executives fearful of loss of jobs to China
By Gabriel Cabarrouy Medill News Service
Posted August 22, 2003
More than 300 Midwest executives and managers from the manufacturing and service industries met Thursday in Oakbrook Terrace to discuss how the transfer of jobs to China and its currency practices have devastated U.S. manufacturing.
"The goal of all this effort is to stop the erosion of manufacturing in America," said Bob Weidner, president and chief executive of the Metals Service Institute, whose local chapter organized the meeting.
In the past three years, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost nationwide, official statistics show. Meanwhile, the trade deficit between the United States and China keeps increasing. The United States now imports $10 billion more in goods from China than it exports to there.
"We all came because we all feel threatened," said David Lehman, chairman and chief executive officer of Steel Ware Co. Inc. of South Bend, Ind. "Many more jobs are going to be lost unless we do something."
The pinch has been felt hardest in the Midwest, Lehman said. His steel tubing company lost several of its major customers who have moved their factories to China.
"Every time we talk with customers the first words out of their mouth are, 'We are thinking about China,'" Lehman said.
John Licht, chairman and chief executive officer of Duraco Products Inc. in Streamwood, encouraged executives and managers to send letters to federal officials.
Licht, whose company makes plastic flower pots, said he had to lay off 900 out of 1,200 worldwide employees because of competition from China.
"Most of our federal government officials have put us in harm's way," he said. "They refuse to acknowledge the issue or the consequences."
Licht said he's stopped making contributions to candidates who don't promise to help the manufacturing industry.
"We're the silent majority," he said. "You've got to get louder, meaner and in their face."
Donald McNeeley, president and chief executive officer of Chicago Tube & Iron Co., said free trade is no longer fair.
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