Rep. Kaptur Slams U.S. Trade Policy as More Ohio Workers are Deemed Eligible for TAA
Ohio Member calls necessary program clear evidence U.S. trade policies are failing American workers
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) today issued a stinging rebuke of U.S. trade policies following news that workers laid off at U.S. Steel’s Lorain Tubular Operations and at Lorain Northern Railroad have been determined to be eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).
“Today’s announcement will come as welcome relief for thousands of workers and their families in and around Lorain, OH, but my colleagues in Congress need to wake up to the harsh reality of this program. Trade Adjustment Assistance is an essential safety net for workers laid off due to trade but it amounts to a band-aid on the major head trauma that has resulted from decades of U.S. trade policy. The need for TAA is clear and irrefutable evidence that America’s trade policies are failing our working families.
Every single one of these Lorain workers lost a job due to irresponsible trade policies and through no fault of their own, the terms of TAA eligibility. The same has to be said of millions of workers throughout the country who have qualified for TAA in recent decades. Talk of TAA’s inclusion in the ongoing Fast Track debate should give pause to every hard working American. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and other similar deals are being rigged from the start.
President George Herbert Walker Bush once called trickle down policies “voodoo economics.” I’ve heard the mantra “more jobs, more exports” for decades and I can tell you, that’s voodoo trade policy. It doesn’t happen that way. Instead the U.S. ends up throwing its doors open, liquidating its industries and selling out its workers in a global race to the bottom.
Millions of good American jobs don’t disappear on their own; they disappear because of decisions made by Congress and the Executive Branch. And the damage spirals out from there. Lost wages and lost productivity carve away billions of dollars in lost economic opportunity. Imports replace products that were once made in the USA, pulling even more out of the U.S. economy. I see no evidence that these past trends will change with the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership and big money efforts to put it on the Fast Track.
America is not helpless in the face of this problem. We have the economic strength to demand a renegotiation of our worst trade deals, and to decline any new deal until these problems are addressed. Until we fix this problem, the gap between working families and the extremely wealthy will 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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