U S Outsourcing Condom Manufacturing – 300 Employees Stand to Lose their jobs in Alabama

There doesn’t appear to be any stimulus money going here. This is the company who has the contract to produce the AIDS preventing condoms that are given out throughout the world. This certainly doesn’t sound like keeping jobs in the US at this location in Alabama.

The company spent millions to upgrade it’s factory a few years ago to manufacture to government standards. If you visit the site there are some manufacturing pictures to view. Free Chinese-made condoms passed out by AIDS groups in Washington, D.C., were the subject of numerous complaints about unreadable expiration dates back in 2007, which was all over the news. It will be interesting to see at a time like this what the outcome will be on this situation. The politics of this are interesting too with a middleman being hired instead of the USAID office dealing directly as they have done in the past.

This man in Cambodia doesn’t care too much as he found the lubricant on the brand he uses to work good with helping him get rid of his acne on his face, so he’s in it for the chemicals. (grin). No word of where the brand he uses is made. BD

At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products? In this case, Chinese condoms.

That’s the dilemma for the folks at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion U.S.-made AIDS-preventing condoms in poor countries around the world. But not anymore.

In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China. The switch comes despite implied assurances over the years that the agency would continue to buy American whenever possible.

In fact, the government is close to accepting condoms from two offshore companies: Unidus Corp., which makes condoms in South Korea, and Qingdao Double Butterfly Group, which makes them in China.

Alatech officials and others, however, maintain there is more than just American jobs at stake. There is a health and quality issue, too.

The problems with Chinese products — including pet food, toys, toothpaste, drywall and more — have increased to the point where many consumers are now wary of the ubiquitous “made in China” label. Alatech formally protested the federal contract going to its foreign competitors. But on March 9, the Government Accountability Office rejected the complaint, noting that it lacked jurisdiction in the case.