Booker: Manufacturing Jobs Are Key To Full Economic Recovery

Newark Mayor Cory Booker on the floor of a Newark textile plant on Wednesday touted the importance of manufacturing jobs for a healthy American economy.

Booker, who by a landslide leads a host of Democratic hopefuls for a U.S. Senate seat, told workers at the Unionwear plant, that their types of jobs were the key to a full economic recovery in the U.S.

“This is a sector that pays workers well, has job vacancies and has potential for not just growth, but robust growth, if we focused on it,’’ Booker said.

Booker said the loss of good-paying, middle-class jobs accounted for the bulk of the jobs lost during the Great Recession. Those jobs, he said, were being replaced with low-paying employment.

“That, in a nutshell, is the source of our problem,’’ Booker said. “We have a disappearing of middle-class jobs and the resurgence of low-wage jobs.’’

Booker’s short speech was a condensed version of a plan to bolster American manufacturing, released Wednesday.

Booker’s plan includes the creation of “manufacturing universities” that integrate industry needs into class offerings; bolstering Chicago-style manufacturing high schools, the creation of a national certification system for manufacturing skills and support of 24 “manufacturing innovation institutes,’’ proposed by the Obama administration to bolster the two dozen identified manufacturing industries in the country.

The 120 workers at the Unionwear produce blue-collar work clothes, hospital scrubs and ammunition bags for the U.S. Army, among other items. Workers make an average of $14- $15 an hour with benefits, according to Mitch Cahn, the plant’s owner.

Mitch credits Booker with helping the business grow from 50 employees in 2005 to its current 120 and for helping the business finance purchase of the building their plant is in.

“A lot of things that he has put into place, a lot of the policies are responsible for our success,’’ Cahn said.