Kaptur Rebukes U.S. Trade Policy as TAA Eligibility Announced for 177 Ohio Workers
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) issued a scathing rebuke of U.S. trade policy today following news that 177 workers laid off at a Kyklos Bearing International (KBI) auto part manufacturing facility in Sandusky have been deemed eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). TAA eligibility is granted only in cases where workers were laid off through no fault of their own as a direct result of global trade.
Rep. Kaptur has voted repeatedly to maintain TAA while criticizing the underlying trade policy that continues to make it necessary. Earlier this year she sent a letter to Labor Secretary Tom Perez urging that workers laid off at KBI be made eligible for TAA and other related assistance.
Her full statement:
“NAFTA and other damaging global trade deals continue to be allowed to do their worst to the U.S. economy. These deals have already led to the outsourcing of millions of good American jobs overseas. Today’s announcement shows that the slow bleed continues as another 177 Ohio workers are forced to accept trade adjustment assistance made necessary by the job killing effects of bad trade policy.
Trade Adjustment Assistance is vitally important for these workers and families in Sandusky who just recently lost jobs as a direct result of these deals, but job losses will continue to mount until we deal with the real issue: reckless global trade agreements such as NAFTA that have failed our working families for decades.
Every one of these Sandusky workers lost a job through no fault of their own as a result of irresponsible U.S. trade policy. And the same thing has happened to millions of workers throughout the country over the past few decades. Let me tell you, millions of good American jobs don’t disappear on their own. They disappear because Congress and the Executive Branch make poor choices that do not serve the best interests of working families or the American people. And Congress and the Executive Branch are pushing to repeat those poor choices again with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would cause more of the same job outsourcing.
Instead of signing on for even greater job losses and economic devastation through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we need to go back and fix the broken deals that got us here in the first place. My Balancing Trade Act (HR 1403) would renegotiate any trade deal that has produced a deficit of more than $10 billion dollars for at least three consecutive years.
We have a responsibility to renegotiate of our worst trade deals and to stop new deals from causing even more damage. Until we begin to heal our nation’s economy from the harms of job-killing global trade deals, including NAFTA and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, the opportunity gap between working families and the extremely wealthy will only continue to grow.”
TAA is a federal initiative for workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own due to trade. The requirements for inclusion are stringent and only workers who lost jobs at facilities determined to have been closed or downsized due to trade are eligible. According to the 2013 TAA Annual Report, “nearly 4.8 million workers have been certified trade-affected and eligible to receive TAA benefits and services. As of December 31, 2013, the TAA program had served 2,192,910 workers.”
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