Policy Matters Ohio Report Finds Trade-Related Job Loss Scars Ohio : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

Policy Matters Ohio Report Finds Trade-Related Job Loss Scars Ohio
Government Data Attributes 45,734 Lost Jobs Directly to International Trade

Although trade advocates argued that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other trade agreements would add jobs to the U.S. economy, 45,734 Ohio jobs lost between 1995 and October 2003 can be directly traced to international trade. A new Policy Matters Ohio analysis of data from the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program and the former North American Free Trade Agreement-Trade Adjustment Assistance (NAFTA-TAA) program finds that 75 of Ohio’s 88 counties experienced job loss as a result of international trade over the last 8 years.

In the four years between November 1999 and November 2003, Ohio saw a net loss of 244,000 non-agricultural jobs, of which 191,000 were manufacturing jobs. Trade and Job Loss in Ohio, embargoed for Thursday, February 19th, finds that a significant portion of these jobs were eradicated because production was relocated to a foreign country or because of increased imports of foreign goods. These two factors are considered “trade-related.”

“More than one in six of the manufacturing jobs lost in Ohio between 1999 and 2003 can be traced directly to international trade,” said Jon Honeck, Ph.D, Policy Matters Ohio Research Analyst and the report author. “Trade agreements were supposed to bring more jobs to the U.S., but they’ve resulted in a net job loss, especially of high-paying manufacturing jobs.”

The TAA and NAFTA-TAA program data pinpoint specific manufacturing facilities where jobs were lost due to trade. However, the program omits much trade-related job loss. Many workers are unaware of the program, very few service jobs are covered, and workers whose facilities were relocated to countries other than Mexico or Canada were not covered until recently. Furthermore, job losses at upstream or downstream suppliers – such as auto parts jobs lost when car production moves elsewhere – were not included until recently.

Because the program data omits so many trade-related job losses, Trade and Job Loss in Ohio also discusses estimates of trade-related job loss developed by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The EPI used an input-output economic model that considered exports as well as imports, estimated impacts throughout the economy, and projected what levels of manufacturing employment would have been if the trade deficit had remained at its 1994 level, when NAFTA was passed. According to this model, increases in the U.S. trade deficit from 1994 to 2000 removed more than 135,000 jobs and job opportunities from Ohio’s economy, nearly 100,000 of which were from the high-paid manufacturing sector. Since that time, our trade deficit has soared higher each year, with the Commerce Department announcing last Friday a $489 billion trade deficit, the highest imbalance in history.

The Policy Matters Ohio analysis of the TAA and NAFTA-TAA data also found:

• Three-fourths (76.1%) of the 45,734 trade-related job losses occurred in the 1999 to 2003 time period. The year with the highest total was 2002, during which 13,093 jobs were lost.

• Of the 45,734 lost jobs identified under the programs, 14,653 were directly due to NAFTA. Nearly two-thirds of the NAFTA-related job losses were caused by U.S. companies relocating production facilities to Mexico.

• According to TAA and NAFTA-TAA data, Cuyahoga County lost over 5,000 jobs due to international trade, more than any other county. Twelve other counties had more than 1,000 jobs lost due to international trade. In all, the two programs certified workers in 75 Ohio counties as having lost their jobs for trade-related reasons.

• The industrial sectors with the greatest numbers of trade-related job losses were electronics and electronic equipment, primary metals, and industrial machinery and equipment (SIC-based). These three sectors together accounted for 24,981 job losses, more than half the total identified by the trade adjustment programs from 1995 to 2003.

The report concludes that trade-related job loss is a significant factor in reducing manufacturing employment in. Policy Matters recommends re-examining trade agreements, improving our assistance of displaced workers, and taking steps to protect communities hit by devastating mass layoffs. “Perhaps it is too late to turn back the clock on trade agreements,” Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters, said. “But it is not too late to be honest about the devastating effects they can have, and to make strong policy changes to protect workers and their communities.”

Dennis has made canceling NAFTA and the WTO a centerpiece of his campaign. Edwards is now trying to criticize Kerry for supporting NAFTA, but Edwards has no intention of ending the trade agreement. As Dennis points out, the agreements were written by the corporations in a way that they can't be reformed. We have to cancel them and go back to bilateral trade based on workers rights and environmental principles. http://www.kucinich.us

Kucinich: U.S. should abandon NAFTA, WTO

JAMES PRICHARD
Associated Press

GREENVILLE, Mich. - The only way for the United States to start creating new manufacturing jobs instead of losing existing ones to other nations is to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, Dennis Kucinich said Friday.

The Democratic presidential candidate's message hit close to home for the 150 or so people who came out to see him speak at the United Auto Workers Local 137 union hall the day before the state's Democratic caucuses.

The local represents 2,500 production workers at an Electrolux AB refrigerator plant scheduled to close in November 2005. The Swedish appliance maker is moving most of the production to Mexico, where labor costs a fraction of the amount it costs in the United States.

"The United States must, must get out of NAFTA. We must get out of the WTO. We have to get out," Kucinich said. The union hall erupted with thunderous applause and loud cheers before he could finish the word "NAFTA."

The Ohio congressman said this country must go back to its previous way of doing business with other countries: dealing one-on-one with them under bilateral trade agreements.

This time, other nations must agree to follow certain rules or they cannot trade with the United States, Kucinich said. Among other provisions, workers must be permitted to have the right to organize, to have collective bargaining, the right to strike and the ability to earn "decent" wages and benefits.

"This takes away the incentive for cheap labor," he said.

With such agreements in place, the United States can again attract factory jobs, Kucinich said.

"All over this country, there's an infrastructure where we can go back into manufacturing," he said. "We can make things again. But it has to be a matter of national policy to do so."

After Kucinich's appearance, Rex Johnson, 56, of Belding, said he "learned a lot" about the candidate's stand on labor issues. Johnson retired a year ago from Electrolux after working nearly 20 years at the plant; his wife still works there.

"I agree with what he said - NAFTA's got to go, WTO's got to go. It's all got to go," Johnson said. "It's doing American business good but it's not doing the American people any good. And if we shrivel up and die, what's left?"

Kucinich as President = a Workers White House, Money for Jobs, Education and Health Care, not for War!

Watch this Speech!

Bilat. trade agreements, kucinich's "alternative", have empirically shown to allow the EXACT SAME kind of industrial infiltration and economic imperialism. You all don't get it. So long as capitalism exists, and MNC's rule the day, the exploitation of labor and third world industry/resources won't end. But Kucinich knows he won't get elected on a anti-capitalist platform, so he has to lie and twist the facts to suit his campaign. It's called politics. Welcome.

I keep seeing a flood of these articles. They seem to all skip over a couple of key points.

1) What are you going to substitute for Free Trade? "Fair Trade" just doesn't cut it. In a system divided into social classes and oppressed and oppressor nations, "trade" in ANY form is a still a vehicle for exploitation. Money flows to money. Many books have been written on it. I'm sure the folks a Revolution Books or AK Press can fix you up.

2) The jobs aren't being lost, they are being transfered. Why do you think a US worker is more deserving of the work than someone in, say, Brazil? They may be in a different political subdivision but its definitely part of the same economic system.

Just because the US worker (and I'm one of them) is "used to" a high paying job and a Brazilian worker is "used to" a low paying one? What do you plan to do for that Brazilian worker to get THEM a high paying job? Isn't there supposed to be working class solidarity? Or are we all supposed to just be selfish economic nationalists here, or be opportunistic radicals who pander to selfish economic nationalists to get over.

Answers
by brandon Monday March 01, 2004 at 07:52 PM
http://www.kucinich.us/statements.htm#NAFTA_111003

Mike: "Bilat. trade agreements, kucinich's "alternative", have empirically shown to allow the EXACT SAME kind of industrial infiltration and economic imperialism. You all don't get it. So long as capitalism exists, and MNC's rule the day, the exploitation of labor and third world industry/resources won't end."

Brandon: Yes, because trade and other global economic decisions, since WWII have been dominated by liberal economists that believe markets should be left alone to operate. We haven't ever had a US president that has demanded workers rights and environmental principles in trade agreements. The priority has always been profits for multinational corporations. Instead of scape goating the catch phrase "capitalism" for the root of all evils, why don't we try to solve these problems. Ranting on and on about how we need a "death to capitalism" doesn't make any sense. Most American's don't even know what Marxism is and definitely aren't ready for a violent overthrow of the government or production process. This ideologically narrow minded view is at best ineffective at solving the problem of exploitive free trade and corporate controll, and at worst, self serving, so "revolutionaries," or whatever else people call themselves that refuse to participate in the elections, can justify why they remain silent and still while the corporate Bush/Kerry machine moves ahead with another 4 years of economic and political consolidation. Hey Mike, maybe YOU "just don't get it." NAFTA and the WTO suck and need to be eliminated. Or should we let more people suffer and die till the "revolution?"

Andy: "1) What are you going to substitute for Free Trade? "Fair Trade" just doesn't cut it. In a system divided into social classes and oppressed and oppressor nations, "trade" in ANY form is a still a vehicle for exploitation. Money flows to money. Many books have been written on it. I'm sure the folks a Revolution Books or AK Press can fix you up.

Brandon: Yeah those geniuses that worship Mao sure could teach me a lesson?? WTF? Seriously, how can you critique fair trade when we have never had it before? We have never had meaningful and enforced trade agreements that demand workers rights (the right to organize, a safe workplace, and a living wage, among other human rights). The US is still the largest economy in the world. Turning away from the WTO would likely lead others to follow and a Kucinich Whitehouse would use our economy as a bargaining chip to raise the standard of living world wide, by refusing to trade with those that don't enforce workers rights.

Andy "2) The jobs aren't being lost, they are being transfered. Why do you think a US worker is more deserving of the work than someone in, say, Brazil? They may be in a different political subdivision but its definitely part of the same economic system."

Brandon: The jobs are moving via the trade agreements because the companies are in a "race to the bottom" so that workers must continue to accept lower wages and poorer conditions competing with each other to be slaves of multinational corporations. We need US leadership to put pressure worldwide for a living wage so that corporations don't have the incentive to abandon communities for different, more impoverished communities to exploit. Worker solidarity? Vote Kucinich. Anyone in solidarity with the workers of the world would be against NAFTA and the WTO.

Also - Bush and other economic liberals (free trade-open market fundamentalists) are trying to push the FTAA to expand the capabilities for corporate exploitation. Kucinich would stop this.

It's time for a workers' white house.

Dennis passionately adressed this issue today in Cleveland. Watch this 3 minute clip

http://resources.kucinich.us/video/trade/trade_win_broadband.wmv

The comments in the OHIO Indymedia regarding trade seems to have missed the point that our current president, W, was not even elected. He was put there by a political coup forged by a federal criminal union, The National Treasury Employees Union, and orchestrated by their Federal Election Commission and a swarm of attornies and men with guns and badges.

The best bet is to send your children out of America to a nation outside of the third world, and the US and Russia.

Our enemies have seized control coast to coast. When I say our, I am referring to the collective common workers. Our enemies are the billionaire's tools, the Democrat and Republican regimes, and their bureaucracy, headed by the mafia of the NTEU.

They have killed federal banking regulators, framed countless numbers of people, and now they control America. Outside of a complete assault by a superior outside nation, we are as good as third world workers in America.

Their media pumps so many lies to us and distractions that we never hear the truth. I have been attacked, imprisoned, and accused of many things simply because I alerted the public to murder and corruption in the federal government. I was a bank examiner for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in San Francisco.

The NTEU mob associates have specialized in accidents, suicide, and natural causes of death that are actually murders. They can even bankrupt blue chip companies throught the IRS and SEC. Remember the Enron accountant found dead in his car with a bullet in his head.

The media said, "It was definitely a suicide. The doors were locked." Our media is on the heist as they are our billionaire enemies who do not care about the average American.

I would rather be dead than be subjected to any more of their imprisonment, injections, accusations, and physical abuse.

Spain elected a Socialist President and pulled out of Iraq. America needs a new political party to oust our billionaire criminals from our houses of government.

Cleveland Indy Media Center