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Links to online articles (or PDFs for articles) related to Bay Area Industry.

Car-Industry Slump Imperils Role in Spurring Innovation

By TIMOTHY AEPPEL, Wall Street Journal

February 30, 2008
Car-Industry Slump Imperils Role in Spurring Innovation - WSJ.com

WESTFIELD - Engineer Al B. Massey slowly let off on the brake and pushed forward on the throttle. With that, the low rumble in the 16-cylinder diesel engine becomes an earthquake underfoot, and the 249,000-pound locomotive built in 1949 starts rolling out of the Pioneer Valley Railroad's warehouse facilities at the Savage Arms plant down through Westfield to the rail yard on Elm Street...

'Made in the U.S.A.' isn't dead, just different

Associated Press, February 16, 2009

"Made in the U.S.A." isn't dead, just different - U.S. business- msnbc.com
Manufacturing sector is shedding jobs; Experts see it changing

WASHINGTON - It may seem like the country that used to make everything is on the brink of making nothing. In January, 207,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished in the largest one-month drop since October 1982. Factory activity is hovering at a 28-year low. Even before the recession, plants were hemorrhaging work to foreign competitors with cheap labor. And some companies were moving production overseas...

'Buy America' in Stimulus (but Good Luck With That)

By LOUIS UCHITELLE Business writer, The Republican (MassLive.com)

August 26, 2008

The “Buy America” clause in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law on Tuesday has a certain quaintness to it. Far more than in the past, the phrase has come to mean “Buy America — if it is still made here.” ...

Railroads feel economic pinch - shift from trucks to trains?

By JIM KINNEY Business writer, The Republican (MassLive.com)

August 26, 2008

WESTFIELD - Engineer Al B. Massey slowly let off on the brake and pushed forward on the throttle. With that, the low rumble in the 16-cylinder diesel engine becomes an earthquake underfoot, and the 249,000-pound locomotive built in 1949 starts rolling out of the Pioneer Valley Railroad's warehouse facilities at the Savage Arms plant down through Westfield to the rail yard on Elm Street.

It had been a busy day on a railroad that is getting busier as the costs of trucking goes up. Michael L. Rennicke, vice president and general manager for Pioneer Valley Railroad, says he expects to handle 5,000 to 6,000 railroad cars loaded with freight this year. That's compared with 4,200 the year before and 3,300 railroad cars in 2006...

City industries feel squeeze with rezoning attracting developers

BY JESS WISLOSKI AND JOHN LAUINGER, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

August 25th 2008

In the battle for buildable land in New York City, factories and warehouses are losing out to glitzy residential towers and commercial developments - and city policies are tipping the scales. When Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, there were 12,542 acres in the city where manufacturers could set up shop. If the latest round of proposed zoning changes goes through, the Bloomberg administration will have rezoned 20% of that factory-friendly land, according to a study by the Pratt Center for Community Development obtained exclusively by the Daily News.

Skilled Trades Seek Workers

By Anton Troianovski, Wall Street Journal

Even as the economy slumps and unemployment rises, strong demand for power plants, oil refineries and export goods has many manufacturers and construction contractors scrambling to find enough skilled workers to plug current and future holes.
With the shortage of welders, pipe fitters and other high-demand workers likely to get worse as more of them reach retirement age, unions, construction contractors and other businesses are trying to figure out how to attract more young people to those fields.

Export Boom Helps Farms, but Not American Factories

By Louis Uchitelle, The New York Times

August 18, 2008

Exports are the bright spot this year in an otherwise bleak economy. But the world is not suddenly snapping up made-in-America goods like aircraft, machinery and staplers. The great attraction is decidedly low-luster commodities like corn, wheat, ore and scrap metal.

This helps explain why manufacturing jobs are continuing to disappear by the tens of thousands and factories are closing even during a miniboom in exports. While the surge in commodities is a welcome relief, it is an unreliable prop for an industrial power.

Forget Coffeehouses- Businesses Want Freeways, Labor, Energy

By Paul Shigley, Planetizen

August 14, 2008

Manufacturing still matters, and what manufacturers want hasn't changed much. The question is whether a "new economy" state like California can compete in the old economy.

Manufacturing companies say they want highway access, skilled and low-cost labor, cheap energy, land and low construction costs. Considering this criteria, you might think a crowded, high-cost state like California couldn't compete.

In Slow Times, Rezoning Appeals to Developers

By Alison Gregor, The New York Times

August 12, 2008

Property developers generally earn their money by putting up new buildings, but when the real estate market cools, making it difficult to obtain financing, they often look for other ways to help turn a profit.

Some developers — and their real estate lawyers — say that rezoning property is one of them. Juan D. Reyes III, a partner in the law firm of Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Peretti, said he had clients seeking zoning changes with hopes of developing or selling the property once the market improves. This particularly applies in areas zoned for manufacturing.

2.3 Million Jobs Lost to China since 2001, Study Shows

Industry Week

July 30, 2008

Manufacturing lost 200,000 scientists and engineers, a 10.7% drop according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
The increasing U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.3 million American jobs between 2001 and 2007, including 366,000 last year alone, according to a study released on July 30 by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). These displaced workers lost an average of $8,146 last year, a total of $19.4 billion, as they moved to lower-paying jobs.

Export Boom Fuels Factory Town's Revival

By Timothy Aeppel, Wall Street Journal

July 18, 2008

MANITOWOC, Wis. -- This is a town manufacturing once deserted -- and is now reviving. On a blustery January afternoon in 2003, nearly 900 workers at the town's second-largest manufacturer, a cookware factory, switched off their machines and were told the company was moving operations to Mexico.

Today, many of those workers are back at the same plant making pots and pans for new bosses. At a factory next door, workers are churning out energy-efficient industrial light fixtures. Across town, one company is using a former shipyard to produce 250-foot-tall steel towers used for wind turbines.

Sons and daughters who ...

Sugar Bowl Bakery is a family affair

By Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, July 6, 2008

When Vietnamese immigrant Andrew Ly and his brothers bought a San Francisco neighborhood doughnut shop in 1979, they were looking for a small business that could support their families. Today the five Ly brothers still own the Sugar Bowl Bakery. Seven of their children and two of their children's spouses work there.
Click here for a PDF of article.

The World Was Flat

By Sam Sherraden, Global Economic Snapshot

June 30, 2008

With the rising price of oil, a consensus has been building that the world is becoming less "flat" than it was in Tom Friedman's bestseller The World is Flat. With higher energy prices global supply chains will fail, countries in East Asia will re-think their export orientation and try to stimulate domestic demand, and countries such as the United States may gain a competitive edge in their domestic market. Oil makes up nearly half of total freight costs and over the past three years every one dollar rise in oil caused a 1% increase in transport costs.
Snapshot asks, will higher energy costs make U.S. manufacturing more competitive?
Business Week - Can the U.S. Bring Jobs Back from China?
Morgan Stanley - High Transport Costs to ‘Un-Flatten' the World
Wall Street Journal - China's Export Machine Threatened by Rising Costs
CIBC - Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization?

AMB Property to sell prime sites, reap millions

By J.K. Dineen, San Francisco Business Times

June 9, 2008

As a REIT specializing in urban industrial infill next to ports and airports, AMB Property Corp. has often found its blue-collar distribution centers smack in the development path of decidedly white-collar office parks and condominiums.

Industrial Land Preservation: Key to Green Jobs Growth

By Margot Lederer Prado, Urban Habitat/Race, Poverty and the Environment, Who Owns Our Cities?

Spring 2008 Issue

The most important issue facing Oakland today,” is how former Planning Commission Chair Mark McClure describes the debate over the conversion of Oakland’s approximately 33.8 million square feet of industrial land (and potential job-generating space) for residential use.

The Murder of US Manufacturing

By Martin Hutchinson, The Bear's Lair, Asia Times

June 18, 2008

The sad story of GE Appliances is a paradigm of what has gone wrong in the US economy since 1980. No, manufacturing did not need to leave the United States; US manufacturing was killed by a multitude of foolish short-term-profit motivated decisions by inept and overpaid US management. The other questions can also be answered. Manufacturing is not intrinsically a low-skill and uninteresting operation. It involves skills at the highest possible level and can readily employ high-wage workers - after all LG's workforce in South Korea are these days very far from being subsistence-level Third World proletariat. Finally, the US cannot survive through financial services and tech startups alone; it needs to reinvest in manufacturing or it will find itself unable to support an advanced-economy living standard for the mass of its population.

Stung by Soaring Transport Costs, Factories Bring Jobs Home Again

By Timothy Aeppel, Wall Street Journal

June 13, 2008

The rising cost of shipping everything from industrial-pump parts to lawn-mower batteries to living-room sofas is forcing some manufacturers to bring production back to North America and freeze plans to send even more work overseas.

Suddenly, a bright future for old-economy companies

By Peter G. Gosselin Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 24, 2008

WASHINGTON — This is not your economy. It's not even your parents' economy. To a surprising degree, this is your great-grandparents' economy.

Protect Oakland's Industrial Base

Sharon Cornu and Josepth J. Haraburda, ContraCostaTimes.com

March 1, 2008

Guest Commentary in the Contra Costa Times

Steel Pipe Factory Breaks Ground

ContraCostaTimes.com

March 1, 2008

The $137 million United Spiral Pipe plant in Pittsburg will produce big steel pipes ... of the United Spiral Pipe firm that will operate the new factory.

THE FAST T(R)ACK / For Bay Area Design Students

Zahid Sardar, Chronicle Design Editor

February 27, 2008

For Bay Area design students, the real world of manufacturing begins at school

Report: Midwage jobs vanish in Silicon Valley

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer

February 19, 2008

Midwage jobs vanish in Silicon Valley

Shop class retooled at S.F. high school

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

February 18, 2008




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	Recent Media Coverage & Articles of Interest Links to online articles (or PDFs for articles) related to Bay Area Industry. Car-Industry Slump Imperils Role in Spurring Innovation By TIMOTHY AEPPEL, Wall Street Journal February 30, 2008 Car-Industry Slump Imperils Role in Spurring Innovation - WSJ.com WESTFIELD - Engineer Al B. Massey slowly let off on the brake and pushed forward on the throttle. With that, the low rumble in the 16-cylinder diesel engine becomes an earthquake underfoot, and the 249,000-pound locomotive built in 1949 starts rolling out of the Pioneer Valley Railroad's warehouse facilities at the Savage Arms plant down through Westfield to the rail yard on Elm Street... 'Made in the U.S.A.' isn't dead, just different Associated Press, February 16, 2009 "Made in the U.S.A." isn't dead, just different - U.S. business- msnbc.com Manufacturing sector is shedding jobs; Experts see it changing WASHINGTON - It may seem like the country that used to make everything is on the brink of making nothing. In January, 207,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished in the largest one-month drop since October 1982. Factory activity is hovering at a 28-year low. Even before the recession, plants were hemorrhaging work to foreign competitors with cheap labor. And some companies were moving production overseas... 'Buy America' in Stimulus (but Good Luck With That) By LOUIS UCHITELLE Business writer, The Republican (MassLive.com) August 26, 2008 The “Buy America” clause in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law on Tuesday has a certain quaintness to it. Far more than in the past, the phrase has come to mean “Buy America — if it is still made here.” ... Railroads feel economic pinch - shift from trucks to trains? By JIM KINNEY Business writer, The Republican (MassLive.com) August 26, 2008 WESTFIELD - Engineer Al B. Massey slowly let off on the brake and pushed forward on the throttle. With that, the low rumble in the 16-cylinder diesel engine becomes an earthquake underfoot, and the 249,000-pound locomotive built in 1949 starts rolling out of the Pioneer Valley Railroad's warehouse facilities at the Savage Arms plant down through Westfield to the rail yard on Elm Street. It had been a busy day on a railroad that is getting busier as the costs of trucking goes up. Michael L. Rennicke, vice president and general manager for Pioneer Valley Railroad, says he expects to handle 5,000 to 6,000 railroad cars loaded with freight this year. That's compared with 4,200 the year before and 3,300 railroad cars in 2006... City industries feel squeeze with rezoning attracting developers BY JESS WISLOSKI AND JOHN LAUINGER, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS August 25th 2008 In the battle for buildable land in New York City, factories and warehouses are losing out to glitzy residential towers and commercial developments - and city policies are tipping the scales. When Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, there were 12,542 acres in the city where manufacturers could set up shop. If the latest round of proposed zoning changes goes through, the Bloomberg administration will have rezoned 20% of that factory-friendly land, according to a study by the Pratt Center for Community Development obtained exclusively by the Daily News. Skilled Trades Seek Workers By Anton Troianovski, Wall Street Journal Even as the economy slumps and unemployment rises, strong demand for power plants, oil refineries and export goods has many manufacturers and construction contractors scrambling to find enough skilled workers to plug current and future holes. With the shortage of welders, pipe fitters and other high-demand workers likely to get worse as more of them reach retirement age, unions, construction contractors and other businesses are trying to figure out how to attract more young people to those fields. Export Boom Helps Farms, but Not American Factories By Louis Uchitelle, The New York Times August 18, 2008 Exports are the bright spot this year in an otherwise bleak economy. But the world is not suddenly snapping up made-in-America goods like aircraft, machinery and staplers. The great attraction is decidedly low-luster commodities like corn, wheat, ore and scrap metal. This helps explain why manufacturing jobs are continuing to disappear by the tens of thousands and factories are closing even during a miniboom in exports. While the surge in commodities is a welcome relief, it is an unreliable prop for an industrial power. Forget Coffeehouses- Businesses Want Freeways, Labor, Energy By Paul Shigley, Planetizen August 14, 2008 Manufacturing still matters, and what manufacturers want hasn't changed much. The question is whether a "new economy" state like California can compete in the old economy. Manufacturing companies say they want highway access, skilled and low-cost labor, cheap energy, land and low construction costs. Considering this criteria, you might think a crowded, high-cost state like California couldn't compete. In Slow Times, Rezoning Appeals to Developers By Alison Gregor, The New York Times August 12, 2008 Property developers generally earn their money by putting up new buildings, but when the real estate market cools, making it difficult to obtain financing, they often look for other ways to help turn a profit. Some developers — and their real estate lawyers — say that rezoning property is one of them. Juan D. Reyes III, a partner in the law firm of Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Peretti, said he had clients seeking zoning changes with hopes of developing or selling the property once the market improves. This particularly applies in areas zoned for manufacturing. 2.3 Million Jobs Lost to China since 2001, Study Shows Industry Week July 30, 2008 Manufacturing lost 200,000 scientists and engineers, a 10.7% drop according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. The increasing U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.3 million American jobs between 2001 and 2007, including 366,000 last year alone, according to a study released on July 30 by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). These displaced workers lost an average of $8,146 last year, a total of $19.4 billion, as they moved to lower-paying jobs. Export Boom Fuels Factory Town's Revival By Timothy Aeppel, Wall Street Journal July 18, 2008 MANITOWOC, Wis. -- This is a town manufacturing once deserted -- and is now reviving. On a blustery January afternoon in 2003, nearly 900 workers at the town's second-largest manufacturer, a cookware factory, switched off their machines and were told the company was moving operations to Mexico. Today, many of those workers are back at the same plant making pots and pans for new bosses. At a factory next door, workers are churning out energy-efficient industrial light fixtures. Across town, one company is using a former shipyard to produce 250-foot-tall steel towers used for wind turbines. Sons and daughters who ... Sugar Bowl Bakery is a family affair By Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 2008 When Vietnamese immigrant Andrew Ly and his brothers bought a San Francisco neighborhood doughnut shop in 1979, they were looking for a small business that could support their families. Today the five Ly brothers still own the Sugar Bowl Bakery. Seven of their children and two of their children's spouses work there. Click here for a PDF of article. The World Was Flat By Sam Sherraden, Global Economic Snapshot June 30, 2008 With the rising price of oil, a consensus has been building that the world is becoming less "flat" than it was in Tom Friedman's bestseller The World is Flat. With higher energy prices global supply chains will fail, countries in East Asia will re-think their export orientation and try to stimulate domestic demand, and countries such as the United States may gain a competitive edge in their domestic market. Oil makes up nearly half of total freight costs and over the past three years every one dollar rise in oil caused a 1% increase in transport costs. Snapshot asks, will higher energy costs make U.S. manufacturing more competitive? Business Week - Can the U.S. Bring Jobs Back from China? Morgan Stanley - High Transport Costs to ‘Un-Flatten' the World Wall Street Journal - China's Export Machine Threatened by Rising Costs CIBC - Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization? AMB Property to sell prime sites, reap millions By J.K. Dineen, San Francisco Business Times June 9, 2008 As a REIT specializing in urban industrial infill next to ports and airports, AMB Property Corp. has often found its blue-collar distribution centers smack in the development path of decidedly white-collar office parks and condominiums. Industrial Land Preservation: Key to Green Jobs Growth By Margot Lederer Prado, Urban Habitat/Race, Poverty and the Environment, Who Owns Our Cities? Spring 2008 Issue The most important issue facing Oakland today,” is how former Planning Commission Chair Mark McClure describes the debate over the conversion of Oakland’s approximately 33.8 million square feet of industrial land (and potential job-generating space) for residential use. The Murder of US Manufacturing By Martin Hutchinson, The Bear's Lair, Asia Times June 18, 2008 The sad story of GE Appliances is a paradigm of what has gone wrong in the US economy since 1980. No, manufacturing did not need to leave the United States; US manufacturing was killed by a multitude of foolish short-term-profit motivated decisions by inept and overpaid US management. The other questions can also be answered. Manufacturing is not intrinsically a low-skill and uninteresting operation. It involves skills at the highest possible level and can readily employ high-wage workers - after all LG's workforce in South Korea are these days very far from being subsistence-level Third World proletariat. Finally, the US cannot survive through financial services and tech startups alone; it needs to reinvest in manufacturing or it will find itself unable to support an advanced-economy living standard for the mass of its population. Stung by Soaring Transport Costs, Factories Bring Jobs Home Again By Timothy Aeppel, Wall Street Journal June 13, 2008 The rising cost of shipping everything from industrial-pump parts to lawn-mower batteries to living-room sofas is forcing some manufacturers to bring production back to North America and freeze plans to send even more work overseas. Suddenly, a bright future for old-economy companies By Peter G. Gosselin Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — This is not your economy. It's not even your parents' economy. To a surprising degree, this is your great-grandparents' economy. Protect Oakland's Industrial Base Sharon Cornu and Josepth J. Haraburda, ContraCostaTimes.com March 1, 2008 Guest Commentary in the Contra Costa Times Steel Pipe Factory Breaks Ground ContraCostaTimes.com March 1, 2008 The $137 million United Spiral Pipe plant in Pittsburg will produce big steel pipes ... of the United Spiral Pipe firm that will operate the new factory. THE FAST T(R)ACK / For Bay Area Design Students Zahid Sardar, Chronicle Design Editor February 27, 2008 For Bay Area design students, the real world of manufacturing begins at school Report: Midwage jobs vanish in Silicon Valley Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer February 19, 2008 Midwage jobs vanish in Silicon Valley Shop class retooled at S.F. high school Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer February 18, 2008

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