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Groups want to talk about manufacturing

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By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer Updated 11:14 AM Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Harco Manufacturing Group, an auto components producer, had some 500 employees when it operated in Englewood several years ago.

Today, the company has about 120 employees, and Rick Garver, general manager of the Harco facility (now in Moraine), blames abuse of free trade pacts.

“The free trade agreements ... need to be fair trade agreements,” Garver said Wednesday after a press conference at Dayton city hall. “And today they are not.”

He said Harco sometimes bids on jobs only to have a competitor in Southeast Asia bid for the same job “at lower than the cost of global materials.”

The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, and a host of Dayton-area businesses and organizations — including the Dayton Development Coalition and the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority — are planning an “economic summit” Oct. 7 at the Dayton Convention Center to talk about ways to get a handle on trade and how it affects manufacturing and farming.

Garver and others spoke at today’s press conference about their hope to strengthen local manufacturing.

James Winship, president of the International Union of Electronic Workers-Communication Workers of America Local 755, said manufacturing jobs once based in Southwestern Ohio didn’t disappear but instead shifted over years to China, Korea and elsewhere.

“They’ve gone everywhere,” Winship said. “They’re just not in Dayton anymore.”

To register or get more information about the Oct. 7 summit, go to www.prosperousamerica.org.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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