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Campaign Targets Indiana, Illinois Voters
Stand Up for Steel Launches Drive to Save Manufacturing Jobs

By Phil Rockrohr
Northwest Indiana Times
Thursday, September 7, 2006

A nonpartisan business coalition of management and labor has launched an ad campaign asking voters to back candidates willing to save manufacturing jobs.

Stand Up for Steel began airing print and radio ads Tuesday asking candidates to step forward if they are willing to protect American workers by enforcing trade laws the coalition claims are currently ignored by the U.S. government.

Officials of SUFS, formed in 1998 by the United Steelworkers and leading steel manufacturers, said the campaign is targeted at voters in Illinois, Indiana and seven other states.

Illinois has lost 169,000 manufacturing jobs in the last five years, including 119,000 in the Chicago area alone, Joe Caruso, a spokesman for SUFS, said in a statement.

While employment has grown 15 percent in the last 10 years nationally, it has climbed only 2.1 percent in Lake and Porter counties, according to the Indiana Center for Business Development.

"Since 2001, America has lost nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs," Caruso said via e-mail Wednesday. "Foreign competitors have an unfair advantage over American manufacturers. They exploit cheap labor, lower environmental standards and enjoy government subsidies."

American companies and workers are forced to compete against subsidized foreign goods because the government does not enforce laws against the subsidies, Caruso said.

"Without the enforcement of those laws, we cannot stop the flow of subsidized foreign goods into this country," Caruso said. "American manufacturers and American workers can compete and win, but we need a level playing field to do so."

The ads, which will appear in "numerous publications and (on) radio stations across important manufacturing states," ask voters to hold political leaders accountable and demand they protect manufacturers and workers, he said.

Other states targeted include Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Caruso said.

The ads will run at least into October and possibly longer, he said.