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SCOTT JAGOW: Members of the United Steelworkers union are forming an unusual partnership with corporate giants like U.S. Steel and Alcoa. They're announcing the "Alliance for American Manufacturing" today to help American factories hit hard by foreign competition. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports.

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NANCY MARSHALL GENZER: The union and manufacturers are joining forces to save their own skins. Scott Paul is the Alliance's executive director.

SCOTT PAUL:"As Ben Franklin... said at the beginning of the American Revolution, 'We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will hang separately."

Paul says the U.S. has lost more than three million manufacturing jobs in six years. He blames China -- and says the alliance will target what it calls Beijing's unfair trade practices. The group will also try to convince 20-somethings that manufacturing is hip.

SCOTT PAUL:"This is not your grandfather's manufacturing facility any more. There are more people sitting behind computers than on the shop floor."

The Alliance for American Manufacturing will launch campaign ads beginning Thursday on the Internet and in newspapers. In Washington, I'm Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.