Made in China: Key Parts of New Calif. Bridge Won't be Made in America
because the "Buy America" provisos would probably have required purchasing more expensive steel and fabrication from United States manufacturers.
A new Bay Bridge will connect San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., by 2013. The bridge, which officials are calling 'the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge,' will cost $7.2 billion when complete, but state decided not to apply for federal funding when the project began in 2006. Why?
According to a New York Times report in June, it was in part so they wouldn't have to buy more expensive American steel:
. . .because the "Buy America" provisos would probably have required purchasing more expensive steel and fabrication from United States manufacturers.
California avoided legal requirements to use domestic steel by not using federal funds for the job.
The steel contract went to a state-owned Chinese company, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, which had several advantages: modern production facilities, ships to deliver the steel and, of course, low-cost labor. A Chinese steel polisher makes about $12 a day.
American workers weren't happy at the time and still aren't. NPR reports the union's perspective on the outsourcing:
Bob LaVenture, a district director for the United Steel Workers Union, has opposed outsourcing this job.
"There is no way that American workers will be able to ever compete with $12 a day," he said. "It's just not right and it's not right for America."
But NPR went on to report Anziano as saying it wasn't just a money thing. It was capacity: "In this particular case, we had full-time staff on site over in China — 24/7 — that monitored all aspects of fabrication work and performed their own quality-assurance testing," he said. "[/b]So we have a very high level of assurance about what we are getting."
[Tony Anziano, a program manager at the California Department of Transportation,]
