Alabama condom makers see hard times ahead

Withdrawal of federal $$ means that workers get the shaft.

The New York Times had this related story on Sunday. Here's an excerpt:

EUFAULA, Alabama — Here in this courtly, antebellum town, Alabama’s condom production has survived an onslaught of Asian competition, thanks to the patronage of straitlaced congressmen from this Bible Belt state.

Behind the scenes, the politicians have ensured that companies in Alabama won federal contracts to make billions of condoms over the years for AIDS prevention and family planning programs overseas, though Asian factories could do the job at less than half the cost.

In recent years, the state’s condom manufacturers fell hundreds of millions of condoms behind on orders, and the federal aid agency began buying them from Asia. The use of Asian-made condoms has contributed to layoffs that are coming next month.

But Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, has quietly pressed to maintain the unqualified priority for American-made condoms and is likely to prevail if the past is any guide.

“What’s wrong with helping the American worker at the same time we are helping people around the world?” asked the senator’s spokesman, Michael Brumas. ...

The history of the federal government’s condom purchases embodies the tradeoffs that characterize foreign aid American-style. Alabama’s congressmen have long preserved several hundred factory jobs here by insisting that the United States Agency for International Development buy condoms made here, though, probably in a nod to their conservative constituencies, most have typically done so discreetly. ...

Senator Richard C. Shelby, a Republican on the Appropriations Committee, had a provision tucked into the 2004 budget bill requiring that Usaid buy only American-made condoms to the extent possible, given cost and availability. His spokeswoman, Kate Boyd, said the agency did not tell him it was worried about the relative cost of American and Asian-made condoms.

Senator Sessions wrote Usaid a letter last year saying it should purchase condoms from foreign producers only after it had bought all the condoms American companies could make, noting it was “extremely important to jobs in my state.”