The United Steelworkers (USW) have assailed President Bush's State of the Union speech as "an exercise in Alice in Wonderland rhetoric" and have called on tougher China trade laws.

"The reason people are so stressed," USW President Leo W. Gerard said, "is that health care costs are totally out of control, the cost of gas and heating fuels is going through the roof, and millions of family-supportive jobs–especially in manufacturing–are being wiped out because of rotten trade policy and a president who's more willing to cater to Wall Street and the Chinese than enforce the trade laws or protect American workers."

Gerard said his members are particularly outraged by President Bush siding with the Chinese at the expense of American workers by refusing to impose tariffs on pipe imports, despite a ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that the Chinese are dumping pipe in the U.S. at below market prices.

"To satisfy the Wall Street crowd that's making a killing on outsourcing, the President blatantly betrayed American workers whose jobs are being wiped out."

16.5% of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. were lost in the past five years.

The USW is now North America's largest industrial union, with 850,000 members. It represents workers in the steel, rubber and tire, paper, mining, and the oil and chemical industries, as well as tens of thousands of health care and service workers.

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