Clinton, Obama at convention center this morning

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_562199.html

By Joe Napsha
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, April 14, 2008

The biggest problem facing the next president will be preserving and creating manufacturing jobs in the United States, says United Steelworkers President Leo W. Gerard.

"To get the economy moving in the right direction again, we need to reinvest in our industrial base and in new technologies that will create good-paying manufacturing jobs," said Gerard, who heads the Pittsburgh-based USW, which has 850,000 members in the United States and Canada.

"American workers and companies both need to know how Sen. (Barack) Obama and Sen. (Hillary) Clinton will deal with this most serious problem," said Gerard, whose union represents workers in the nation's major manufacturing industries.

The USW chief and steel executives such as Allegheny Technology Inc. CEO L. Patrick Hassey will have an opportunity to question Democrats Clinton and Obama on their plans for strengthening the U.S. manufacturing sector during a forum this morning at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown.

The event will not be a debate and is not open to the public. Obama is scheduled to speak first and leave, followed by a panel of labor-management representatives, and then Clinton, said Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit labor-management association in Washington. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona was invited to speak but was unable to attend, Paul said.

"Energy, taxes, health care and trade are all issues ... that should be viewed through the framework of how it will affect our competitiveness and growth of manufacturing jobs," Paul said.

FULL story at link.