NEW YORK — Officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other transportation agencies met with steel industry and union representatives last week to address concerns that the growing use imported steel on big public projects hurts American companies.
U.S. steel companies and their workers say public agencies have an obligation to buy American, and that the largely state-run Chinese steel industry has an unfair advantage over domestic makers because of low wages, state subsidies and lax standards.
“We can’t expect to use toll payer or taxpayer dollars and try to be competitive with China,” said John Shinn, a district director for the United Steel Workers union, who attended the meeting last Wednesday at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s New York offices.
Others at the meeting included Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, MTA officials, members of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, and representatives of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York.
The MTA was criticized earlier this year for using Chinese steel in a Verrazano-Narrows Bridge deck replacement project. The Port Authority faced similar criticism for planning to use Chinese steel on the Bayonne Bridge, though the job’s contractor has since switched to an Italian steel maker.
Shinn was cautiously optimist about what will come from last week’s meeting and follow-up sessions, after he said officials told him they would rather use domestic steel and conceded that reforms may be needed to level the playing field for public contracts. “I would say it was a productive conversation,” Shinn said. “But we’ll see.”
The Port Authority’s next big project is a $1.5 billion replacement of the Goethals Bridge, a project the agency says will include a so-called Buy American clause, requiring that domestic materials be incorporated into bids.
A spokesman for Foye released a statement yesterday saying, “The Port Authority is committed to growing the economy and creating jobs in the New York and New Jersey region.”
The manufacturers alliance president, Scott Paul, released a statement characterizing last week’s meeting as the opening of a “constructive dialogue,” following domestic steelmakers' disappointment over the Verrazano job.
“As we move forward from this missed opportunity to create American jobs, AAM will be stepping up its monitoring of major bridge and public works projects nationally,” Paul stated.
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