Posted on 03/13/2018 4:14:28 AM PDT by servo1969
MSNBC host Ali Velshi patronized a steel worker on his show Friday by making the assumption that he wouldn't want his son to become a steel worker.
Scott Sauritch, the president of United Steelworkers Union Local 2227, appeared on the show to discuss his support for President Donald Trump's newly announced tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports.
"So let me ask you this, Scott. You saw this trend in the 80s. You saw the imported steel was hurting the industry. I guess my question is for steel workers around America as I discussed with somebody earlier, a lot of this is technology, right?" Velshi asked. "It just takes fewer human labor hours to make a ton of steel. At some point doesn't it make more sense to start to transition. You don't want your son being a steel worker I assume."
Sauritch said his son actually just got hired by U.S. Steel "not too long ago," prompting Velshi to ask him whether this bothered him, citing "fewer" steel jobs.
"If a man wants to make a good living and a good wage and a steel good benefits, the opportunity arises. Now for a young man to come in and to have job security, this tariff that is put on across the board is going to help everyone out," Sauritch said.
He went on to defend the steel industry by saying the United States doesn't want bridges built from compromised steel from China.
"There's a difference between quality and junk," Sauritch said.
Sauritch was one of the steel workers invited to speak at the White House on Thursday about his support for Trump's tariffs. He told Trump and other reporters there about his father, Herman, a former worker in the steel industry, losing his job due to increased imports.
It was a plank in the 1924 GOP platform. 1924 was NOT the Depression. Did you to school?
He used to call me a “Free Traitor” all the time until I told him that, considering the source, I believed it was a badge of honor. He hasn’t called me that since.
Steel fabrication in Tulsa was my out of the backwoods where the Chicken Men had a stranglehold on the local economy and paid nothing but starvation wages so no one could escape their grasp.
The point is there has not been a reduction in American steel production in over thirty years. None, zero, zip. Whether that steel is made in ten factories, or in fifty, is of no importance.
Hey, get a real argument instead of loser failed economic policy of industrial destruction
How about rolling back fedgov regulation of industry back to what it was in the '50s? Can we agree on that?
I'm not telling you that, and I challenge you to point out where I said that.
You said "The factories in the USA closed down completely!" in your post #16, and I pointed out that that was an incorrect statement, and cited evidence to back up my assertion.
In response to which, you implied that I was on drugs, and accused me of being a "bonehead" and "stupid."
I did grow up in Dinwiddie County, but that doesn't mean I'm "stupid."
And no one I knew in Dinwiddie County was "stupid," either.
Although I certainly didn't know everyone there.
Tom. SOME( a lot ) of steel mills closed down completely and were shipped over seas. That doesn’t mean ALL US steel factories were shipped over seas. Confusing automation with off shoring is a common ‘mistake’ globalists make. Automated or not, the USA produces a little more than half the steel it used to make in the 1970’s with 2/3’s the population.
I don’t know how patronizing that is. Every parent wants their children to do better than they did. My dad spent a career on the Ford assembly line and there is no way he would have wanted the same for my sister and me.
A Democrat shows his true colors and gets smacked down. There it is on display, the Democrats hate the little people and think they are stupid if they think for themselves.
Keep digging that hole deeper, Democrats. Double down on arrogance, that’s your winning strategy.
A lot of that steel we made in the 60s and 70s was exported. Now we are the world's sixteenth largest steel exporter.
Is that because eeeevil globalists have been sabotaging our steel industry? Only in the fevered brains of conspiracy theorists.
What actually happened are two things. First, the rest of the world got smart and got productive. Second, our country decided to tax and regulate our industries to within an inch of bankruptcy.
We can fix the second, but as to the first, we pretty much have to suck it up if we want to sell competitively priced products.
Nucor Steel has the highest steelworker wages and they are non-union.
I think the world is begging for high quality US steel products. So exports would be the next hurdle. Having the extra capacity is a matter of national security also.
The Democrats have no monopoly on that.Just look around Free Republic...
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As a retired factory worker, I’ve noticed over the years.
By no means all, not even a majority, look down their noses at people like me. When I want to hear an elitist head explode, I describe myself as a retired union worker.
Never, in my lifetime voted for a democrat.
Oh, ok. A PRE-Depression era Republican platform. That makes it SO much more relevant!!!
You know darn well who Conservative Gato is. No one else would come up with that ridiculous reference and use your “Free Traitor” line. Then you disappeared for a,while. What happened; were you on probation for multiple user accounts???
There's an industry I definitely wouldn't want my son working in, and there's a parallel here: We see another trend where modern technology is hurting the Fake News Industry because the people decided to transition on their own.
So to quote Velshi, "At some point doesn't it make more sense to start to transition" (away from fake news)?
I have no idea what you are talking about, Conservative Gato. Is he a Freeper form way back?
“Well it was either that or journalism, and we wanted to be proud of him.”
Never, in my lifetime voted for a democrat.
I did work in a heavily unionized manufacturing plant in upstate New York; the guy I worked with every day was the shop steward. He was totally committed to the union, but he was very smart and a hard worker. He helped me in many ways, never hassled me about "picking up a screwdriver" or anything like that, and impressed me greatly.
Unfortunately (and I'm sorry to say this) the plant closed and is gone; the company was acquired in 2015 by a conglomerate.
Maybe the man’s son decided that being a steelworker as preferable to being a journalist.
I was teaching my kids to be journalist but they refused to tell lies and act stupid
Electric furnace recycling of scrap steel still needs pig iron to thin the non-iron component and make up for shortfall of scrap. Republic in Lorain, Ohio appears to be resurrected by the Trump tariff move; and, with ERP Iron Ore, will restart Pig production.
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