Editor's Note: Today we re-launch Front and Center, our special series about the Great Lakes region. In June and July, WBEZ broadcast more than 30 stories focused on water, examining everything from pollution to climate change to invasive species.
This winter, President Obama took the unusual step of naming Ron Bloom his assistant for manufacturing. But Bloom stepped down in August to return to his family in Pittsburgh. He hasn’t been replaced. This comes as manufacturers in our region are clamoring for attention.
Navistar builds all kinds of trucks across North America: at non-union factories in the South and Mexico, as well as union shops in the Midwest. But the United Auto Workers at its Springfield, Ohio plant said a year of changes has made them competitive with those non-union plants.
The towering brick buildings that cluster around where Cermak Road crosses the Chicago River in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, on the city’s near Southwest Side, once hosted everything from cloth manufacturers to food warehouses.There’s still an industrial feel in the area, with barges floating up a
The gravel in your driveway, the steel in your car, and the coal that produced electricity for your home may well have spent time on a Great Lakes freighter on its way to you.
Manufacturing giant Caterpillar has received approval to acquire a Chinese mining equipment maker in an $8.8 billion deal.The Peoria-based company said Friday that it had cleared the final major regulatory hurdle necessary to close the deal: approval from the Chinese government.
