QUEENS, N.Y. – In just a month since its official launch, a new Web site MadeInUSA has signed up more than 350,000 U.S.-based companies looking to encourage consumers to "be American and buy American."
Creators of the site hope to ensure that as many jobs as possible stay in the U.S. rather than be outsourced overseas.
For 50 years now, Mountain and Sackett, a tie manufacturer with a plant in Long Island City, N.Y., has made ties mostly by hand. Some 50 employees, some who have been with the company for decades, stitch meticulously for 40 hours a week. They get health care benefits too.
With a growing number of Americans opting to buy cheaper garments that are imported from outside the country — Mountain and Sackett has had to be creative in its approach to generating sales, all while trying to keep its workforce employed and the family atmosphere of the company in tact.
It takes an hour and a half to make a tie by hand at Mountain and Sacketts. Nick Sackett, the president of the company, says if he replaced some of the workforce with equipment, the ties could be made in a minute and a half. But many Americans value the hand-sewn product made right here in the U.S. So Sackett and his partner, John Mountain, logged onto MadeInUSA and registered their business for free, trying to get the word out.
MadeInUSA is based on the principle that "patriotic spending" keeps hard-earned dollars, made on American jobs, in America.
The Web site can help you find furniture, pet supplies, apparel and wine, to name a few, all at the click of a mouse.
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