Trade And Labor

Floor Speech

TRADE AND LABOR -- (House of Representatives - May 21, 2007)

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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Hare, thank you for leading us in this very important Special Order tonight. Trade is one of the critical issues facing our Nation.

Let me say that on the campaign trail, Mr. Speaker, I found myself talking about jobs, employment, and opportunity to people on a daily basis. Whether I went to the suburban areas or the heart of Minneapolis, I could talk to people about trade. And it wasn't just people who were in labor unions. Also, Mr. Speaker, it was people who had small businesses.

One particular business that does a metal plating service was very concerned about trade and expressed to me how vital it was that they be able to continue to compete with other companies around the world that do metal plating but that they were in jeopardy and loss of business all the time due to trade policy.

So whether you are a small business person, farmer, worker, no matter who you may happen to be, trade policies are affecting our country, and we need to be very clear about it.

As I was on the campaign trail, I ran into people who were recent immigrants who were concerned about immigration policy; and, Mr. Speaker, here is what they told me. They said, look, prior to NAFTA, we were doing okay where we lived, but after NAFTA it got a lot harder to run a farm in certain southern parts of our country, and we just couldn't make a go of it anymore. So some folks started moving north.

Now the fact is we have to understand that whether we are talking about small business people, trade unionists, people who have been forced to immigrate, no matter what you are talking about, trade policy is critical. So when I was on the campaign trail, Mr. Speaker, one of the things I made very clear to people is that I was concerned about trade, that I wanted to do something about trade, and we need a model for trade that said that we were not going to export our jobs. We were not going to incentivize sending our jobs away. We were going to care about the human rights of people abroad. We were going to care about our small businesses here, and we were going to have a new trade policy that said that Americans who are trying to live the American Dream and experience prosperity could do it right here and would not be subject to an unfair trade policy of our Nation.

So, Mr. Speaker, I set about this journey working hard, working with my colleagues in the freshmen class, talking about trade and how we could get a better trade deal, Mr. Speaker. So I am very concerned about these issues.

On May 10, 2007, the Bush administration and congressional leadership talked about a new, with bipartisan cooperation, deal on trade; and I am not saying that the deal is bad or good. What I am saying is that we have got to be very clear, very careful about how we proceed forward.

I am happy about the announcement of labor standards and environmental standards. Of course, those things are good. But, Mr. Speaker, we can't rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need a whole new boat. We need a new model. We need a new way of going forward.

The ``deal'' covers changes to certain provisions of the Bush-negotiated free trade agreement with Peru, Panama, but also Colombia and South Korea. The legal texts of the proposed agreement have not been made public, though summaries have been shared with Members of Congress.

We appreciate the chairman's willingness to work with the AFL-CIO on the labor chapter and are pleased to see a commitment to the International Labour Organization's standards on the May 10 agreement. However, we have got to be careful as we go forward, because, ultimately, it is going to be the Bush administration that is responsible for enforcing these labor standards; and we are a little skeptical. Let me be clear.

We remain concerned, I remain concerned over the future of ``fast track'' authority, and the proposed Korea and Colombia Free Trade Agreements. Congress needs to reassert its authority over trade policy as we move forward.

We are concerned, and speaking for myself, I am concerned, that as we go forward, that we make sure that we have a new model on trade, a new commitment to the working people of America, a new commitment to the human rights and environmental rights around the world.

I fear there are remnants of the failed FTA-WTO trade model in the May 10 agreement which will only lead to further hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs and the erosion of American manufacturing and service industries.

Mr. Speaker, over 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs, one in every six, have been lost under the FTA-WTO trade model. By the end of 2005, the U.S. had only 14,232,000 manufacturing jobs left, which is nearly down 17 million before NAFTA and the WTO went into effect in the early 1990s.

What makes these already horrible statistics worse is the fact that the U.S. job export crisis is expanding from manufacturing to high-tech and service-oriented jobs. Contrary to the belief of Big Business and the multinational corporations, the decline of U.S. manufacturing is not the result of Americans simply choosing different careers; in fact, job loss and wage stagnation are increasingly affecting workers from sectors where the U.S. is understood to have a competitive advantage, such as professional services and high technology.

Studies commissioned by the U.S. Government show that as many as 48,000 jobs in U.S. jobs, including many high-tech jobs, were off-shored in the first 3 months of 2004 alone. Economy.com estimates that nearly 1 million U.S. jobs have been lost to off-shoring since 2000, with one in six of those being in IT, financial services and other services. Goldman Sachs estimates that about half a million U.S. service jobs were off-shored between 2002 and 2005.

Projections of future job losses are frightening. A University of California-Berkeley study concluded that 14 million jobs with an annual average salary of almost $40,000 are vulnerable to being sent overseas. That is a lot of food, clothing and shelter, Mr. Speaker, and we cannot tolerate the loss of these important jobs. Additionally, we can expect up to 25 percent of additional IT jobs will be relocated by 2010. We can't let it happen. Furthermore, since NAFTA, the U.S. trade deficit has risen from about $100 billion to about $717 billion, or 6 percent of national income. Mr. Speaker, we can't allow that to continue to happen.

Remember that real wages for U.S. workers are flat or declining, and jobs now available in the U.S. economy suffer and offer less pay and fewer benefits than jobs that we've lost since 1994.

Our Nation is in trouble when it comes to trade policy, and we've got to have a change. And we don't have confidence, or I don't have confidence, in this administration to make sure that any standards are being enforced, and we've got to demand that they are.

So, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to be said about this. I look forward to the continuation of this Special Order because trade policy is important to the American people. It was a common theme on the campaign trail during my election, and from what I've heard from my freshman colleagues, they are very concerned about it, too. Mr. Speaker, we need a new trade policy.

I want to yield back at this time, but I want to commend my fellow Members and colleagues, and especially freshman Members, on standing up for American working people, business people, immigrants, and all kinds of people when it comes to trade policy.

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