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By jwjnational, on October 4th, 2011
This week, Congress is considering three dangerous new “free trade” agreements — with Colombia, Panama, and Korea. With more than 25 million Americans desperately searching for full-time jobs, the last thing our leaders should be focused on is trade deals that won’t create jobs or help working families.
Join the AFL-CIO’s National Call in Day and dial 1-800-718-1008 and tell your lawmakers to stop these trade deals. You can also send your message via email by clicking here.
What’s wrong with these trade deals?
The Korea agreement is the largest off-shoring deal of its kind since NAFTA. If enacted, it likely will displace 159,000 U.S. jobs, mostly in manufacturing. And its glaring loopholes would allow unscrupulous businesses to import illegally labeled goods from China and possibly even from sweatshops in North Korea—potentially without any tariffs at all.
In Colombia, one trade unionist is murdered nearly every week and almost none of the murderers are brought to justice. In 2010, 51 trade unionists were assassinated in Colombia—more than in the rest of the world combined. So far in 2011, another 22 have been killed, despite Colombia’s heralded “Labor Action Plan.” Would we reward a country where 51 CEOs were killed
Continue reading Call today to STOP unfair trade deals!
By Arthur Stamoulis, on February 17th, 2011
The biggest “free trade” agreement since NAFTA is about to hit the floor of Congress. On February 9, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk testified before the House Ways & Means Committee that the White House will be submitting the Korea Free Trade Agreement for a vote within the next few weeks.
The Korea FTA was negotiated and signed in 2007, but President Bush was never able to get it through Congress. President Obama campaigned against it during his bid for the White House, but recently dusted it off and has been running with it as his own. This despite the fact that even the federal government’s own International Trade Commission (ITC) predicts that the Korea FTA will increase the overall U.S. trade deficit — meaning more job loss at a time when the country can least afford it.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, imports from South Korea will displace 888,000 American jobs within just seven years should the Korea FTA be enacted, costing the country a net 159,000 jobs in the process. Furthermore, the trade deal would hurt employment in some of America’s highest-paying industries. The ITC predicts that good-paying, high-union-density sectors of the economy like motor vehicles
Continue reading Stop the Biggest “Free Trade” Agreement Since NAFTA
By MaryBe McMillan, on August 30th, 2010
 Forty-seven years after the 1963 March on Washington, the union movement and our allies are preparing for our own march in October. Under the banner of One Nation Working Together, union members, civil rights activists and other concerned citizens will rally in support of good jobs, a quality education for every child, immigration reform and workers’ freedom to form a union. Our rallying cry is that we must reverse the dangerous trend toward greater income inequality and finally create an economy that works for all.
To achieve that goal and to become a truly united nation working together, leaders of the One Nation coalition partners—particularly our nation’s labor leaders—could learn a valuable lesson from that earlier march on Washington: The road to justice and equality must go through the South.
During the 1963 march, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently illustrated this point when he said:
“Let freedom ring from the mountains of New York… Pennsylvania…. Colorado…. California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia…. from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee….f rom every hill and molehill of Mississippi….let freedom ring.”
Civil rights leaders knew the only
Continue reading Opinion: Workers Who Win the South Change the Nation
By Debbie Kline, on February 3rd, 2010
 It wasn’t very long ago that every time you looked at a clothing label you would see “Made in the USA.” Not only was it made in the USA but it probably also had some sort of connection to a thriving garment industry in the Cleveland area. Names like Joseph & Feiss Co, Bobbie Brooks, Printz-Biederman, Lion Knitting Mills, and Cleveland Worsted Mill dominated the industry and union cards kept people gainfully employed.
But this good thing has come to an end. Now Hugo Boss, the last clothing manufacturer in Cleveland, has given notice of their intent to shutter their plant and permanently lay off 400 workers at the end of April.
Hugo is closing because they want to ship the jobs to a plant in Turkey where they can pay much less than the average current rate of $12 per hour they pay Cleveland employees.
Hugo management offered to stay if the employees were willing to cut pay to $8 an hour.
Maybe there should be a new rule—no more pay cuts anywhere
Continue reading Hugo Boss Threatens to Move Overseas if Workers Refuse $4/Hr Pay Cut
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