Minor Thoughts from me to you

United States Steel, Alcoa, Goodyear and the United Steelworkers want to convince you that American manufacturing is in serious decline and that if serious action isn't taken soon our manufacturing sector will disappear entirely.

"The hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs is hurting America down to the local level," said Terrence D. Straub, United States Steel's senior vice president for public policy and government affairs. "Until and unless there is a political understanding of that -- and political attention paid to that -- our fear is much won't change and in 10 years the American manufacturing base could be gone."

"The image of manufacturing has taken a beating "” quite unfairly "” especially with the younger generation that views information technology and services as being hip and cool," said Scott Paul, the alliance's executive director, who used to work in the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s industrial department. He said the group wants to "reconnect the American people with the importance of manufacturing and what it means in their lives and what it has meant in terms of creating good, middle-class jobs."

"The fundamental reason we've formed this is we've lost three million manufacturing jobs, and there doesn't appear to be a strong pro-American manufacturing voice out there," said Mr. Gerard, whose union represents 800,000 steel, aluminum, rubber, paper and chemical workers. "The so-called manufacturers' organizations that exist are part of the problem. The National Association of Manufacturers promotes the loss of manufacturing. The N.A.M. has become the voice of multinationals giving away our jobs, of setting up operations overseas."

Oh, baloney. The American manufacturing sector has never been stronger. This is just another example of the shoddy facts and logic that Warren Myer attacked in his analysis of Manufacturing Jobs Myths. For one thing, we manufacture far more today than we ever did before:

Considering total goods production (including things like mining and agriculture in addition to manufacturing), real goods production as a share of real (inflation-adjusted) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is close to its all-time high.

• In the second quarter of 2003, real goods production was 39.2 percent of real GDP; the highest annual figure ever recorded was 40 percent in 2000.
• By contrast, in the "good old days" of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the United States actually produced far fewer goods as a share of total output, reaching 35.5 percent in the midst of World War II.

For another thing, not all "manufacturing jobs" are created equal:

Let's take an automobile assembly plant circa 1955. Typically, a large manufacturing plant would have a staff to do everything the factory needed. They had people on staff to clean the bathrooms, to paint the walls, and to perform equipment maintenance. The people who did these jobs were all classified as manufacturing workers, because they worked in a manufacturing plant. Since 1955, this plant has likely changed the way it staffs these type jobs. It still cleans the bathrooms, but it has a contract with an outside janitorial firm who comes in each night to do so. It still paints the walls, but has a contract with a painting contractor to do so. And it still needs the equipment to be maintained, but probably has contracts with many of the equipment suppliers to do the maintenance.

Keep in mind that the United Steelworkers exists to further the aims of steelworkers who like cushy jobs. The union doesn't exist to further the interests of all Americans. Keep that in mind as you view this graph, depicting the amount of goods manufactured, as a share of GDP.