Our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) have just launched Job Search, a new online tracking tool to keep up-to-date tabs on what Republican presidential candidates and President Obama are saying about and proposing to do to solve the nation’s jobs crisis and fix the economy.

Some 56 percent of those surveyed in a poll released today say Congress and the president should work on jobs this year and 48 percent say those jobs should be in manufacturing. When asked whether Congress and the president should focus on the federal budget deficit or jobs, 67 percent say jobs, according to the poll conducted by the Mellman Group and Ayres, McHenry & Associates for the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

The documentary “No Contract, No Cookies,” which began airing this month on HBO2, puts a very human face on what is becoming an all-too familiar and tragic story. Byrnwood, a private equity firm bought the family-owned Stella D’oro bakery, which had been a part of the Bronx community since the Depression. Many of its 136 employees, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 50, had worked there for decades.

This is a crosspost from the Detroit News by UAW President Bob King.

If there is one thing that UAW members and leaders have had to understand and deal with it is the concept of being  competitive in the global economic marketplace in which we all now operate.

In a special July 4 guest column, Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing says one way we can all show our patriotism and boost the economy is to do our best to buy American-made products.

Enjoy the fireworks today and thank our Founding Fathers for the freedom we enjoy. While you are at it, thank them for making manufacturing a central part of the American idea.

In another effort to create quality jobs and help revitalize American manufacturing, the White House last week announced the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a joint program of universities, private industry and government.

The Paris Air Show—the largest and most prestigious in the world—draws thousands of aviation and aerospace companies looking for new products and technology and, in many cases, new manufacturing locations.

The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent in May, a slight increase from April’s 9 percent rate, according to the latest government figures. The monthly payroll survey shows the economy added just 54,000 net jobs overall last month, down from the average 220,000 in the previous three months. While the private sector added 83,000 jobs, even that anemic growth was tempered by disappearing government jobs. Local government employment has dropped by 446,000 since its peak in September 2008.

Two years ago, the U.S. auto industry was on the verge of collapse. General Motors Corp. (GM) had filed for bankruptcy and had just begun to reorganize with $30 billion from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Chrysler, also with TARP support, reached a partnership deal with Fiat and began its climb from bankruptcy.

The United States can lead the global economy of the future but it will require a combination of government policies that level the playing field and encourage manufacturing and innovation and corporations willing to make changes in the way they do business, three experts said today.