Stop Exporting American Infrastructure Jobs to Other Countries

Progressive talk show host Leslie Marshall and United Steelworkers (USW) International Vice President Tom Conway discussed the deterioration of America’s roads and bridges and how this country is allowing infrastructure jobs to be exported to other countries when we have so many unemployed people here. They used the Verrazano Narrows Bridge as an example.

The original Verrazano Bridge was built, engineered and produced American in 1969, and so were the 65,000 other major bridges all across the country. Public transportation agencies didn’t have the attitude American steel companies couldn’t do the job then, and they shouldn’t be claiming that excuse now. America’s working families, who pay taxes and tolls with their labor, can do the job.

The United Steelworkers have asked American industrial companies to join us in rebuking the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and reclaim our heritage for building the best bridges in the world.

“We’re not anti-trade. Trade has been the foundation of our country since its inception,” said Conway. “But exploiting labor shouldn’t be a comparative advantage – the fact that you can get away with in an oppressive governmental scheme that is essentially a dictatorship.”

To hear more of the discussion, click the audio below.

Here are some background materials:

MTA outsources $235M Verrazano Bridge project to China

Stop in the Name of Love – of Country

SF Bay Bridge may have been lost jobs opportunity

Fireworks Explode in New York Over Chinese Bridge Deal

U.S. Senators React to China Steel in Verrazano Bridge Repairs