Do Unions Harm U.S. Manufacturing?

Online, November 18, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Josh Bivens' briefing paper entitled "Squandering the Blue-Collar Advantage- Why Almost everything Except Unions and the Blue-Collar Workforce are Hurting U.S. Manufacturing" is confronting the idea that unions are the main cause of manufacturing evil.

The paper by The Economic Policy Institute is an interesting read, with opening statements such as "...the relatively low pay and high productivity of the blue collar workforce in the US manufacturing sector provides an important competitive edge over its trading partners." The Economic Policy Institute is a non-profit organization "created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low and middle income workers."

Why is US manufacturing being hit so hard? According to Bivens, "the US manufacturing sector would seem to be well-placed in the global marketplace but unfortunately the exchange rate movements over the previous decade have hamstrung the competitiveness of US manufacturing", including healthcare. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said that "the median per capita health spending of the 16 countries with higher hourly production worker wages than the US is only about half of what the US spends. Lastly, there's a problem in management, specifically wages. Bivens states that even "if managers took an amount of the overall manufacturing wage bill equal to the median (of other rich nations), overall labor costs in US manufacturing could be at least 6% lower."

MEA Incorporated contributes to field services all over the world. The company has five fulltime field service engineers, all with a degree in electronics, trained in both hydraulics and mechanics that would be attainable for a range of customer demands. From years of experience, MEA has found that electronic control interfacing, troubleshooting and calibration is the most needed expertise by our customers. This service is provided on a routine basis, which is over phone assistance with regards to the problem, and to know the comprehensive issue being faced. MEA also offers a rebuilding service in which equipment is restored to original factory specifications. Please feel free to visit their website at www.meaincorporated.com