Outsourcing: San Francisco's Bay Bridge Rebuilding: Now Made In China

[amborin]

Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label




At a sprawling manufacturing complex here, hundreds of Chinese laborers are now completing work on the
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Next month, the last four of more than two dozen giant steel modules — each with a roadbed segment about
half the size of a football field — will be loaded onto a huge ship and transported 6,500 miles to Oakland.
There, they will be assembled to fit into the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge.

The project is part of China’s continual move up the global economic value chain — from cheap toys to Apple
iPads to commercial jetliners — as it aims to become the world’s civil engineer.

The assembly work in California, and the pouring of the concrete road surface, will be done by Americans.
But construction of the bridge decks and the materials that went into them are a Made in China affair.
California officials say the state saved hundreds of millions of dollars by turning to China.

snip

In New York City alone, Chinese companies have won contracts to help renovate the subway system,
refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North
train platform near Yankee Stadium. As with the Bay Bridge, American union labor would carry
out most of the work done on United States soil.

American steelworker unions have disparaged the Bay Bridge contract by accusing the state
of California of sending good jobs overseas and settling for what they deride as poor-quality Chinese steel.
Industry groups in the United States and other countries have raised questions about the safety and quality
of Chinese workmanship on such projects. Indeed, China has had quality control problems ranging from tainted
milk to poorly built schools.

snip.

The new Bay Bridge, expected to open to traffic in 2013, will replace a structure that has never
been quite the same since the 1989 Bay Area earthquake. At $7.2 billion, it will be one of the
most expensive structures ever built. But California officials estimate that they will save at
least $400 million by having so much of the work done in China. (California issued bonds to
finance the project, and will look to recoup the cost through tolls.)



snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

[RKP5637]

1. Gee, I just can't understand why America has a jobs problem. n/t

[Laf.La.Dem.]

2. SAD

shirts, pants, socks, hats, shoes, appliances, computers, TVs, etc. etc. and now bridges!!!!

[ArcticFox]

3. We would destroy ourselves for 5% off.

[Book Lover]

4. I don't get it - this is not new information

When Arnie signed these contracts, California newspapers told the story.

[inna]

10. you don't get what?

this *is* new information for many of us, btw, just so you know.

[Raine]

12. Well it's "new " to me because I didn't know

I'm a Californian but I don't get a newspaper. I rarely watch the local news because I'm not into car chases and Hollywood gossip. Plus in Los Angeles they don't cover what happens up North. :-(

[Angry Dragon]

5. A bill should be passed:

You want to spend public money it has to be 100% American ...........

[Xithras]

6. Sadly, our government has sold us out to keep that from happening.

Our international "trade agreements" specifically ban local governments from giving preference to domestic production. If California tried, the federal government could have intervened because the state would have been violating an international treaty.

THIS is why so many of us protest against these trade treaties, and yet we're continually marginalized as kooks by both the mainstream press and middle America. They might wake up some day...but I doubt it.

[femrap]

7. Why do I think there is

a place in the bridge that has a fracture in the steel?

[kath]

8. Dupe - may want to merge with the other thread, here in GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1365664

[nc4bo]

9. Global economy is good.

:sarcasm:

I don't understand why there wasn't a stink about this alot earlier, like around the time the bids/contracts were negotiated and/or won. Why now that the bloody thing has been fabricated and boated over here ready to install. :wtf:

I had some links saved on another computer proving the low quality of Chinese steel and why it shouldn't be used in structural applications. The photos were pretty bad. I guess quality is no longer an issue and no one has any problem with our infrastructure being made from notoriously low quality materials.

The loss of jobs in our horrible economy speaks volumes on where our leaders alliances lie.


Sad.

[Heywood J]

11. Because Chinese building products have never been suspect before.

Tell that to mechanics receiving counterfeit bolts or importers experiencing "quality fade". For an additional 5% of the price, that work could have been done on these shores.

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. Vladimir Lenin: "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

Now we're not in real danger of the Chinese communists hanging our lovable capitalist fat cats, but we did give them the combination to our middle class bank vault. They have helped themselves to trillions of dollars and millions of jobs. Thank you Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr.