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Joe Biden (D) Biden has voted for some trade agreements, but he has steadfastly voted against recent bad agreements covering Central America, Oman, the Dominican Republic, Singapore and Chile. (The Times Union, 8/2/05; S. 3569, 6/29/06; S. 1307, 6/30/05; H.R. 2739, 7/31/03; H.R. 2738, 7/31/03)
Biden also has been fighting to retain manufacturing jobs in Delaware by working with other officials to keep Chrysler’s Newark plant open and save 2,100 jobs. He has lobbied Chrysler to keep the plant open, meeting with Chrysler officials and writing a letter on the plant’s behalf, and has proposed legislation to help make the plant, and Chrysler, more competitive. Biden’s legislation includes $500 million for research and development of advanced battery technology for hybrid vehicles and a raise on the cap of the number of hybrid vehicles that would be eligible for consumer tax credits.
“We have to be out there moving like the devil to give them a competitive capability," Biden said. The Detroit News reported that Biden said “there aren’t many blue-collar jobs that provide a good standard of living. ‘I think the industry has had a real wake-up call. But we have to help them on health care and a national energy policy and they have to start thinking of the next decade and not the quarter or there's no way out for them.’” (The News Journal, 2/18/07, 2/9/07; Detroit News, 1/8/07) Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) Clinton voted against CAFTA and an unfair trade agreement with the Dominican Republic, but she voted for bad trade agreements with Oman, Singapore and Chile. (S. 3569, 6/29/06; S. 1307, 6/30/05; H.R. 2739, 7/31/03; H.R. 2738, 7/31/03)
At the 2006 UAW legislative conference, Clinton discussed the importance of labor standards in trade agreements and why she voted against CAFTA:
"…ne of the reasons I voted against CAFTA is that it retreated from advances we were beginning to make at the end of the 1990s. We should never ever enter into a labor agreement in the 21st century that does not have labor and environmental standards in trade. Because if we don’t have trade agreements that lift the bottom up, we will see a race to the bottom.
"And that means we’ve got to enforce the trade agreements that are already on the books, something that this administration refuses to do. That is why we cannot grant Thailand access to the U.S. auto market. That would be just like admitting that we’re dying and would just speed the suicide.
"This makes no sense at all. I believe in trade. But I believe in trade where it’s not only on a level playing field but where we are lifting up the world not driving the American worker and the American standard of living down." (UAW Legislative Policy Conference, 2/8/06)
At the same conference, she talked about the importance of retaining manufacturing jobs in the United States:
“You know, we are in the position we find ourselves today: where we are losing good paying jobs, where wages are stagnant, where people are losing health care and pension security, and where we have a government that wants to undo the work of the 20th century…And it just reinforced, for me, that whatever is wrong with American manufacturing can be fixed by doing what is right with American manufacturing and putting people in charge who know how to do that.
"We have competitive advantages that nobody in the world has. We have a strong, flexible, hard-working, experienced workforce. We just have to unleash you to be able to be competitive. We have a real commitment to innovation, but we don’t get any support from our government on that front. We have elected officials who are willing to stand up and form a consensus about how to enhance manufacturing." (UAW Legislative Policy Conference, 2/8/06)
Because of the damage to our manufacturing sector, she said in New Hampshire:
"…here is a sense among many that, after years of forward momentum, the country's progress has begun reversing. This is especially true for middle-class workers and people once employed in the manufacturing industry. 'They are running in place, but they feel like they are falling behind,' she said." (Rutland Herald, 2/12/07; Video: Keene, N.H., town hall, 2/11/07) Chris Dodd (D) Dodd has voted against recent bad trade agreements including CAFTA and trade agreements with Oman, Dominican Republic, Singapore and Chile. (H.R. 3045, 7/28/05; S. 3569, 6/29/06; S. 1307, 6/30/05; H.R. 2739, 7/31/03; H.R. 2738, 7/31/03)
In 2002, he offered an amendment to Fast Track trade authority legislation requiring U.S. trade negotiators to seek workers’ rights standards and enforcement provisions in future agreements. (H.R. 3009, motion to kill amendment passed 5/16/02)
Dodd met with members of the Machinists union to discuss the economy, job exporting and ways to strengthen the defense and aerospace industries. He also has said he “wants to overhaul parts of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to protect industries and jobs that are vital to national security….Dodd said the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy "is hemorrhaging, plain and simple—including jobs in defense manufacturing." (Senate website, 5/16/06; American Economic Alert, 2/2/07) John Edwards (D) Edwards opposes a proposed trade deal with South Korea, which he says would be bad for the U.S. auto industry, and wants to see real labor standards in future trade agreements.
"We need trade that works for American workers, which means there need to be real labor standards, real environmental standards…."(Associated Press, 4/22/07)
As a U.S. senator, Edwards voted against bad trade agreements with Singapore and Chile.He also supported an amendment to Fast Track trade authority legislation to require U.S. trade negotiators to seek workers’ rights standards and enforcement provisions in future trade agreements, equal to those negotiated in the U.S.-Jordan agreement. (H.R. 2739, 7/31/03; H.R. 2738, 7/31/03; H.R. 3009, 5/16/02)
Unions, Edwards says, made manufacturing jobs good jobs and calls "organized labor the nation's ‘greatest anti-poverty movement.’" (AP, 9/4/06) Mike Gravel (D) NAFTA has been a "disaster," according to Gravel:
"NAFTA has been a disaster for the working class of both the U.S. and Mexico and has been a godsend for corporations. A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that through 2004 over 1,000,000 U.S. jobs were lost as a result of NAFTA, a third of them manufacturing jobs. In Mexico, 1.3 million farm workers lost their jobs in the same period. This has led to a wave of immigrant workers looking for work in the U.S. job market.
"Major structural changes must be made to NAFTA in order to restore lost jobs. Reforming unfair trade policies will stimulate job growth on both sides of the border and allow Mexican workers to remain in their motherland. We must make fair trade a priority if we are to rebuild the American middle class." (Campaign website; E-mail interview with Mike Gravel) Dennis Kucinich (D) Kucinich is a vocal opponent of unfair trade policies and job exporting.
"I have traveled across America. And I have seen the effects of agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA: padlocked gates of abandoned factories, grass growing in parking lots of places where workers used to make steel, used to make washing machines, used to make textiles, used to make machine parts.
"Free trade has meant freedom for the American worker to stand in the unemployment line while their jobs were traded away. So-called free trade has brought broken dreams, broken homes, broken hearts to the American manufacturing worker. Trade without equity is tyranny. Trade without economic justice is theft. Trade without integrity, without workers' rights, without human rights, without environmental principles is not worthy of a free people." (Kucinich in the final House CAFTA debate, 7/27/05)
Kucinich advocates the end of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization to protect workers and the environment.
"The exodus of jobs from our shores and the "race to the bottom" for workers around the world is an obvious result of NAFTA and the WTO, both of which make it impossible to place taxes or tariffs on outsourced work. The search for countries where workers are unrepresented and environmental rules are lax must end. NAFTA, WTO, 'Fast Track' legislation, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas must be rejected and replaced with Fair Trade policies in which bilateral trade agreements are negotiated to provide for living wages for workers and environmental safeguards." (Campaign website) Barack Obama (D) Obama voted against CAFTA but for the Oman Free Trade Agreement. (H.R. 3045, 7/28/05; S. 3569, 6/29/06)
He said he opposed CAFTA because workers are not getting help dealing with the negative effects of the corporate-driven global economy.
"I wish I could vote in favor of CAFTA. In the end, I believe that expanding trade and breaking down barriers between countries is good for our economy and for our security, for American consumers and American workers.…I meet these workers all across Illinois, workers whose jobs moved to Mexico or China and are now competing with their own children for jobs that pay 7 bucks an hour. In town meetings and union halls, I've tried to tell these workers the truth—that these jobs aren't coming back, that globalization is here to stay and that they will have to train more and learn more to get the new jobs of tomorrow. But when they wonder how they will get this training and this education, when they ask what they will do about their health-care bills and their lower wages and the general sense of financial insecurity that seems to grow with each passing day, I cannot look them in the eyes and tell them that their government is doing a single thing about these problems. That is why I won't vote for CAFTA." (Press release, 6/30/05) Bill Richardson (D) As U.N. ambassador under Pres. Bill Clinton, Richardson represented the administration’s view that free trade could ultimately be a positive thing for the country. In a speech at the City of Denver’s Annual Free Trade Dinner,
“Richardson warned …against the threat of passivism in the face of global opportunities and challenges, and emphasized the growing importance of free trade, both to Americans and the world at large….'We must be willing to embrace, not selfishly evade, the responsibilities and obligations that the imperative of American leadership entails,' Ambassador Richardson told the several hundred guests. To do so, 'we must do more to seize the opportunity and the limitless possibilities that free trade and global engagement represents for the American people.' ” (Richardson’s remarks, 5/19/98)
But Richardson supports stronger enforcements for wage disparity and worker and environmental protection.
"On the pending free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia, Richardson said, 'I'm a free trader. But I think free trade agreements have to have stronger enforcements in three areas: wage disparity, worker protection and environmental protection.' He said he would only support the pending trade deals if they contain stronger enforcement provisions in those areas." (Miami Herald, 2/26/07) http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/issues_trade.cfmThe AFL/CIO source also ranks the Repu candidates (there is some meaningful variation among them -- much bigger than the differences between Kucinich and Richardson). |
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