Labor leaders slam politicians who ignore the ‘real’ problem with NAFTA [View All]

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.pww.org/article/view/12640/

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 03/05/08 16:46


SAN DIEGO, Calif. — As trade issues took center stage in the Democratic primaries March 4, the AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting here, criticized politicians and the media for handling the trade problem as a “separate and secondary issue that can be treated with small tweaks in trade policy or worker displacement programs.”

“To the contrary,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared, “our struggle to compete successfully in the global economy is intricately connected to the other challenges the U.S. economy and working families are facing.”

Describing those challenges, he said, “Nobody needs to tell workers that the economy is sliding into a second recession in seven years, since they never really recovered from the last recession. America’s workers are struggling with decades of stagnant wages, eroding workplace protections, a collapsing housing market, tight credit and rising prices for everyday essentials such as gas, home heating oil, health care and food.

“In this economic environment,” he continued, “it is all the more urgent that we reform our flawed trade policies to put good jobs at the center of a coherent global economic strategy.”

A report on trade presented by the federation’s legislative and policy committee noted that, starting with the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), production and jobs have been shifted out of the U.S. at a faster and faster rate. A high dollar policy, tax breaks for producing overseas, and trade agreements aimed at protecting the profits and flexibility of mobile capital combined to send a powerful signal to business that moving jobs offshore was the right response to tightening global competition, the report said. It blamed Wall Street for encouraging this mindset by balking at financing any expansion of U.S.-based production facilities, instead encouraging “global sourcing.”

Sweeney reminded labor leaders that NAFTA backers said the deal would make the U.S. “competitive” by shifting less capital-intensive production to low-wage countries like Mexico. This was supposed to strengthen the U.S. in its competition with Europe and Asia.

FULL story at link.