Pennsylvania Fair Trade Coalition

LISTEN TO PATRICK YOUNG, PRESIDENT USW #3657

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TAA Claims from 2011-2012 in Pennsylvania

There are over 6800 total claims since the inception of TAA in Pennsylvania!!!

 

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http://www.batchgeo.com/map/f1e9120cd3347363ae2c8f957f7fe1f7

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 NEWS:

Offshoring Continues to Cost Pennsylvania Among the Most Jobs in the Country

New Government Data Shows Pennsylvania Has Lost 2^nd Most Jobs in Country;
President’s “Trans-Pacific Partnership” Could Accelerate Job Loss Even Further

 

Pennsylvania. — Just days before President Barack Obama is expected to promote his Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement as a job creation effort during the 2013 State of the Union Address, a Pennsylvania fair trade advocacy coalition has released a new analysis of U.S. Labor Department data showing that Pennsylvania lost the fourth most jobs to offshoring out of any state in the country in 2012 and has lost the second most since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) first took effect in 1994.

“Trade agreements that ship Pennsylvania jobs overseas have been bleeding our communities year after year,” said Ed Mooney, Communication Workers of America, Vice President.  ”The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership — as the biggest Free Trade Agreement in U.S. history — could be the death blow to Pennsylvania’s middle class. We recentely lost a T-mobile call center in Allentown.  T-Mobile shut it down and the work is done in the Philippines and Mexico.   Our government should not be creating a system in which it encourages this kind of behavior.  And that’s what they are doing in the TPP negotiations.”

The newly compiled data released today by the Pennsylvania Fair Trade Coalition shows that the Labor Department certified 4,539 Pennsylvanian jobs as destroyed by either direct offshoring or displacement by imports in 2012, bringing the total number of trade-displaced jobs certified by the Labor Department since 1994 up to 163,503, which is second in the nation only to North Carolina.  The following charts show where Pennsylvania stands in relation to other states:

 

States with the Most Trade-Related Job Losses
as Certified by the U.S. Department of Labor (2012)

 

 

States with the Most Trade-Related Job Losses
as Certified by the U.S. Department of Labor (1994 – 2012)

 

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Trade Act Program Database
http://www.doleta.gov/tradeact/taa_reports/petitions.cfm

 

The U.S. Labor Department individually certifies workplace layoffs as being trade-related in order to qualify displaced workers for the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.  The coalition argues that this data set necessarily undercounts the true number of Pennsylvania jobs that have been offshored, first, because it requires people to proactively apply for certification and, second, because people in service sector jobs that have been offshored, such as those in call centers or computer programming, have typically been disqualified by law from inclusion in the program.

 

Pennsylvania workplaces certified as having trade-related layoffs in 2012 included Adecco (Saxonburg), Allied Tube & Conduit (Lawrence), Apex Tool Group (York), AT&T Services (King of Prussia), Bombardier Transportation (Pittsburgh), Brockway Mould (Brockport), Brookfield Global Relocation Services (Fort Washington), Catawissa Wood and Components (Elysburg), Charles Navasky & Co (Philipsburg), Cinram Manufacturing (Olyphant), Codi (Tower City), ConocoPhillips (Trainer), Cooper Bussman (Gibsonia), Delphi Connection Systems (Mount Union), DSI-ITT (Altoona), Dun & Bradstreet (Center Valley), Edmund Optics (Pennsburg), FessierUSA (Orwigsburg), FLABEG Automotive (Brackenridge), GrafTech USA (St Marys) HarperCollins (Williamsport), Hostess Brands (Philadelphia), Huntingdon County Site (Mount Union), II-VI (Saxonburg), JMC Steel Group (Wheatland), Key Manufacturing Textiles (Allentown), Keystone Automotive (Exeter), Lattice Semiconductor (Bethlehem), Mersen USA (St Marys), Narrow Fabric Industries (West Reading), NCO Financial (Canonsburg), North American Communications (Duncansville), OSRAM Sylvania (St Marys), PBS Coals (Friedens), Pittsburgh Glass Works (Pittsburgh), Powerex (Youngwood), Queen Cutlery (Titusville), Respironics (Murrysville), Ross Mould (Washington), RR Donnelley (Glen Mills), Sew Mohr (Reading), Shop Vac (Williamsport), Somerset Foundries (Somerset), Spectrum Sensors and Controls (St Marys), Springs Window Fashions (Montgomery), Sykes Enterprises (Langhorne), T-Mobile (Allentown), TE Connectivity (Middletown), Triangle Suspension Systems (DuBois), Verizon Business Networks Services (Philadelphia), W&W and Sons Contractors (St Marys), Wire Company Holdings (Hanover), WS Packaging Group (York), Yellow Pages Group (Blue Bell) and Yorktowne Paperboard (York).

 

“Far too many of Pennsylvania’s families have already suffered through having their livelihoods shipped overseas as a result of foolish policies like NAFTA and trade preferences for China,” said Amy Conahan, director of the Pennsylvania Fair Trade Coalition.  “The Trans-Pacific Partnership would offshore even more Pennsylvania jobs by forcing local employers to compete with those that exploit sweatshop working conditions in countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, where workers are paid just a pittance of what Chinese sweatshop workers earn.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is currently under negotiation between the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.  Among those countries alone, it would become the largest Free Trade Agreement in U.S. history, but it is also being specifically negotiated as a “docking agreement” that would be open for any country in the Asia-Pacific region to join.

“Since our government is driving this process. They should be pushing values that are good for US citizens.  This means job protection, human rights and labor rights.   There are no labor rights in Vietnam and this will just encourage US employers to act out even more” Mooney added.

“Despite having completed fifteen major rounds of TPP negotiations over a period of several years, U.S. negotiators refuse to tell the American public what they’ve been proposing in our names, while granting hundreds of corporate lobbyists access to the negotiating texts,” said Conahan.  “This sort of back-room deal-making will not turn out well for working Pennsylvanians, and must be opposed.”

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TAKE ACTION NOW:

Click here to easily send a letter to the editor of your paper, telling your local community why it is time for a trade turnaround!

Visit Citizens Trade Campaign at http://citizenstrade.org/

Pennsylvania Job Loss:
According to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 755,000 Pennsylvania jobs are “offshorable,” while 286,000 Pennsylvania jobs are “highly offshorable.” This translates into a combined 1,041,000 Pennsylvania jobs – or 18 percent of the state’s total workforce of 5.7 million – that are vulnerable to offshoring. (“Offshoring” is the term businesses coined to describe their practice of sending work now performed in the United States to other countries.)

Fair Trade Vs. Free Trade: Debate with Mike D’Amore, Allentown City Council and Gregg Potter, LeHigh Valley CLC President http://www.wfmz.com/businessmatters/

President PA AFL-CIO Billy George’s Story on CAFTA
http://www.paaflcio.org/media/pressreleases/2005/opinion/OP060305.htm
Labor & Environmental Groups Applaud Congressman Carney
for His Broad Support

The PA Fair Trade Coalition (PAFTC), the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Clean Air Council visited with Congressman Carney to applaud him for his continued support on fair trade, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and green collared jobs.

Right here in Pennsylvania, more than 1 million jobs are vulnerable to being sent overseas or jobs being outsourced. To address the outsourcing problem, PAFTC recommends state congressional members sign onto the TRADE Act, which is a review and renegotiation of all past, present and future trade agreements. Over 75 members of Congress in the United States have co-sponsored the bill, including Congressman Carney.

The Employee Free Choice Act enables working people to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions by restoring workers’ freedom to choose for themselves whether to join a union. The E.F.C.A. will create a level playing field and help rebuild America’s working middle class. The groups praised Carney for his continued support of the E.F.C.A.

The groups also thanked Carney for his vote on the autoworkers bailout bill. Carney frowned upon republicans attempting to tie the Colombia Free Trade Agreement with the auto bailout. Carney has voted against Colombia.

Background on PAFTC:
The Pennsylvania Fair Trade Coalition (PAFTC) is a statewide coalition of labor, family farm, faith, environmental and student organizations whose mission is to work for socially, economically and environmentally just trade policies which promote a fair global economy and to oppose unjust, unsustainable trade policies.

We believe the NAFTA-WTO model of globalization has failed the U.S. and our trading partners. During the NAFTA-WTO era, we have seen one out of every four U.S. manufacturing jobs destroyed and real wages decline as income inequity has soared. Since 2000 Pennsylvania has lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs.