If passed, trade deals will hurt our economy

By Tim Burga 7:51 PM Tuesday, July 12, 2011

For over a decade, the labor movement and development advocates have called for fair-trade policy that is part of a more coordinated and coherent national economic strategy.

Unfortunately, the Korean, Colombian and Panamanian free-trade deals before Congress do not address the fundamental policy failures of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China’s inclusion into “favored nation status” which has led to catastrophic job loss in the U.S. and the explosion of our import/export deficit, now reaching $500 billion annually.

During this so-called “free trade” era of bad deals, our nation has lost more than 3 million good manufacturing jobs. And, according to a recent Wright State University study commissioned by the Dayton Tooling and Manufacturing Association, Ohio alone has lost more than 345,000 manufacturing jobs over the last decade. We need to focus on domestic job-creation efforts, not passing additional NAFTA-style agreements.

Our trade agreements should strive to reach a level playing field where U.S. companies can fairly trade goods and products with other countries, without barriers and conditions that limit or prevent our exporting. Unfortunately, these trade deals fall short of delivering on this goal.

We cannot expect our workers to trust these deals when we have seen U.S. multinational companies take advantage of foreign government subsidies and other corporate protections, in similar trade deals, to shift production abroad, while maintaining access to the U.S. consumer market and undermining the jobs, wages and bargaining power of American workers.

With respect to the Korean trade deal, the labor movement has consistently argued that the investment and government procurement provisions in this proposal will encourage off-shoring of U.S. jobs. And despite some progress, South Korean workers continue to face repeated challenges to their fundamental human rights of freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively. It is essential that South Korea bring its labor laws into compliance with international standards.

We are also concerned that this trade agreement leaves open the possibility that goods produced in the North Korean free-trade zone could, in the future, gain access to the United States. This possibility is dire because of the horrendous labor-rights record in North Korea and perhaps the lowest wage levels in the world, which only serve to expedite the “race to the bottom” where workers everywhere lose.

In addition to fundamentally reforming our trade policy to recognize internationally accepted human rights, labor law, environmental and monetary standards, the U.S. must implement an industrial strategy in line with our global competitors by supporting domestic production. This approach must include tax policy, infrastructure, workforce training and technology investments that support our basic and newly emerging industries and our manufacturing workers.

The stinging irony is that the passage of these trade deals most likely will include the continuance of Trade Adjustment Assistance for U.S. workers who lose their jobs because of bad trade deals. To be sure, if the Korean, Panamanian and Colombian trade deals go through, as written, more Ohio workers will need this assistance.

Tim Burga is president of the Ohio AFL-CIO.

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