To retain manufacturing edge, raise workers' pay

Editor's Note: More than 46,000 General Motors' workers affiliated to the United Auto Workers' union went on a strike recently demanding higher pay, better benefits and job security. 21st Century Business Herald comments:

A recent documentary on US factories best illustrates the decline of the American manufacturing industry. As the cost of labor increased in the United States, a host of enterprises shifted their manufacturing units to countries and regions where the labor cost was low, leading to a large-scale migration of manufacturing units from the US.

That the US lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs in the first decade of this century alone should give an idea of the massive impact of this industrial migration. To attract the manufacturing enterprises back to the US, the Barack Obama administration adopted a "re-industrialization" strategy.