Oakland Bay Bridge....Made in China

asaratis

Uppity Senior Citizen
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Jun 20, 2009
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....The assembly work in California, and the pouring of the concrete road surface, will be done by Americans. But construction of the bridge decks and the materials that went into them are a Made in China affair. California officials say the state saved hundreds of millions of dollars by turning to China.

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California decided not to apply for federal funding for the project because the “Buy America” provisos would probably have required purchasing more expensive steel and fabrication from United States manufacturers.


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Zhenhua put 3,000 employees to work on the project: steel-cutters, welders, polishers and engineers. The company built the main bridge tower, which was shipped in mid-2009, and a total of 28 bridge decks — the massive triangular steel structures that will serve as the roadway platform.

Pan Zhongwang, a 55-year-old steel polisher, is a typical Zhenhua worker. He arrives at 7 a.m. and leaves at 11 p.m., often working seven days a week. He lives in a company dorm and earns about $12 a day.

“It used to be $9 a day, now it’s $12,” he said Wednesday morning, while polishing one of the decks for the new Bay Bridge. “Everything is getting more expensive. They should raise our pay.”

To ensure the bridge meets safety standards, 250 employees and consultants working for the state of California and American Bridge/Fluor also took up residence in Shanghai.

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California is essentially supporting a form of slavery. To be forced to work 7am to 11pm (16 hours) 7 days a week for $192.00 is slavery, even though there is pay involved.
 
Indeed. The Buy American Act (AUG 2007) would have required that the materials be substantially sourced from North America.

I agree with the poster that this is fairly outrageous.
 
What do you expect from an Administration who does not care for Americans

Remember Obama has 2 Campaign Buses worth over 2 million Dollars that were made in Canada (i guess they do not make buses in the USA either)

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To ensure the bridge meets safety standards, 250 employees and consultants working for the state of California and American Bridge/Fluor also took up residence in Shanghai.
Before I went into the service I worked for Fluor Construction Co. as a Laborer at an Oil Refinery in Wilmington California one summer. I'm surprised to see it's still in business, at least under that name.

They didn't like the fact that a few of scratched off "Fluor" on the side of our hard hats and re-wrote it as "F*ck". Rather hypocritical of them as one of the Supers had written his name on his hat as "Jack Mehoff".

One of the pipe fitters, who looked just like Dustin Hoffman, loved to get stoned nearly everyday in the porta-potty. No that wasn't me! :D
 
Missed this the first time around, do we really want the Chinese involved in fixing our infrastructure? I understand the state (CA) saving money, they actually turned down federal money? American companies were priced out by that much? WTF? It's that much cheaper to make the bridge panels in China with Chinese materials and ship it here? Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, why don't we outsource the war in Afghanistan too, while we're at it?
 
PS: I notice those aholes in CA seem to have enough money to fund that mother fucking high speed rail bull shit. Maybe the chinese are building that too.
 
Shame on Calif for wanting to save taxpayers' money. We want gov't to be more efficient and then complain when they do that.
 

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