Faced with a misleading, anti-union media report and continuing attacks by a right-wing foundation against Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), union activists in Seattle are defending the program as a productive and worthwhile effort to help small businesses build their exports and assist displaced workers obtain career counseling, retraining and extended health care benefits during their job search.

The beneficiaries of TAA “include folks laid off from hundreds of Washington companies, big and small, ranging from the service sector to manufacturing, including forest products, call centers, food processing and more,” write Caitlyn Jekel and Bill Messenger in a Seattle Times column. “In our experience, people who have lost jobs because their company has shifted jobs overseas all want the same thing: to find employment and keep their families from suffering. That’s what the TAA program helps them to do.”

Jekel and Messenger were responding to a previous Seattle Times Business & Technology news article, which argued that TAA is a “federal program lined up by their unions” that provides a lavish “financial cushion” that is “much plumper” than what a typical unemployed worker in the state receives. The columnists, members of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC), pointed out that all workers—not only those dismissed from the Boeing Co.—are eligible for TAA grants if their jobs have been eliminated by competition from foreign companies, many of whom have benefited from U.S. policy to negotiate job-killing “free” trade pacts. Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the authors report, the United States has lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs because companies shifted their operations overseas. TAA represents the “least our government can do to help the victims of these policies,” Jekel and Messenger conclude.

The Seattle Times' accusation about “plump” benefits echoes the drumbeat of opposition to TAA that is being sounded by a right-wing foundation that is pushing Congress to eliminate the program altogether. When TAA last came up for reauthorization in 2011, the Heritage Foundation published a report criticizing the program because it provides “overly generous benefits” for a limited number of dislocated workers and represents an expansion of federal stimulus measures to help the economy recover from the Great Recession. Despite the fact that the TAA program is far from “plump”—it certainly does not compensate workers for the losses they have suffered, nor guarantee sufficient funding to fully retrain all those who qualify for services—the group called upon Congress to let the program expire completely. They propose no program to replace the services offered by TAA. They and other right-wing groups are expected to retain this position as TAA heads toward expiration on Dec. 31, 2013.  

The future of TAA is complicated by the position of the Obama administration, which supports the elimination of TAA as a separate federal program. In March 2012, President Barack Obama proposed that TAA and the dislocated worker program under the Workforce Investment Act be consolidated into a new “Universal Displaced Worker Program” that would offer vouchers to laid-off workers to obtain further education and job training. While TAA allocates the amount to be spent on training, according to the needs of the individual worker, the proposed universal program would place a cap on the training awards. In response, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka reiterated the AFL-CIO’s support for comprehensive services for dislocated workers and confirmed the federation’s opposition to “any reduction in job training, reemployment services, income support or other support for workers who lose their jobs because of trade.”

The debate over the future of TAA will continue through the end of 2013 and beyond. The WSLC and the Washington State Employment Security Department sponsor an excellent introductory website on TAA and how to apply for benefits. The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute offers an informative video about TAA, along with stories of actual workers who have benefited from its services.

Daniel Marschall is with the AFL-CIO Policy Department.