AAM Field Coordinator Meghan McKeefry comes from a manufacturing family.  She told ManufactureThis about it in a recent interview. MEGHAN MCKEEFRY: I grew up in a union household with parents who were strong advocates of teaching the importance of unions, manufacturing in America, as well as education.  My father got me involved at a very young age, as we did everything from member to member walks, phone banks, and Get out the Vote activities to making a float for his local union (USW-formerly PACE) to handing out candy in the holiday parades, and participating in picket lines.  Throughout college I worked summers at a paper mill in Green Bay, Wisconsin working 12 hour shifts.  This experience helped me better my understanding of the manufacturing industry, specifically the paper industry.  From the first summer in 2003 to the last in 2006, I witnessed firsthand how jobs were downsizing drastically, due to technology advances and also far less production.  I heard about people I worked with getting laid off constantly, and could hear the fear in my father's voice when he told the family at the supper table how he might be losing his job and our college education might be at stake.  Luckily, his senority has helped him hold on tight, but everyday he worries about the plant downsizing.  And each year it does, slowly.  This has led me to get involved with AAM and since June 2008 I have been working on the fight to educate and mobilize people about manufacturing in American and how important it is to keep jobs in this country.    I worked at the Georgia-Pacific (local 2-213) paper mill in Green Bay, Wisconsin as summer help during the time I was in college.  I worked as an operator on a wrapper in the tissue and toweling depts.  My last summer in college I did not work there because they had cut the summer jobs immensely and were barely hiring summer help anymore.  While there, I paid union dues and was part of the union.   Since I worked there in 2006, approximately 35 jobs have been permanently displaced, due to foreign competition.  There is a layoff happening right now, of another 60 employees (in a mill of 600).  In the napkin department alone, 5 napkin machines have been removed since 2006, and there are 4 remaining.  Of those 4 machines, they are constantly being shutdown for weeks at a time.  Of the paper machines, #9 has been shut down for a year now, and #1 paper machine is shutting down for 35 days around the holidays, due to its high quality paper that people are not buying during these economic hard times.  I believe there needs to be elected officials in Washington that are on the side of manufacturing.    We need to implement FAIR trade deals globally so U.S. manufacturing base can compete on a level playing field.  Enforce environmental regulations, and stop suppressing labor rights.    I also feel that education of manufacturing/jobloss/unions etc. is extremely crucial for the younger generation.  As manufacturing declines and people retire, it is the younger generation that are going to have to continue these skilled good paying jobs.  They need to be educated at a young enough age.  I know I am involved and interested in this because of how I was raised and that I was taught about these issues, as well as many of my colleagues have been.