Sept. 16—Working families now have a first-of-its-kind tool to determine which companies in their communities are exporting jobs. WORKING AMERICA, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, today launched Job Tracker, an online, interactive database with information on more than 200,000 U.S. corporations and their subsidiaries that are reported to have moved jobs overseas, including jobs lost due to flawed U.S. trade policies.
“This job crisis is not inevitable,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said during a Sept. 16 Washington, D.C., press conference announcing the launch of Job Tracker. “Unfortunately, the official policies of the current administration in Washington promote exporting American jobs instead of attacking the problem. And, over the last four years, the problem has gotten far worse."
Since President George W. Bush took office in 2001, the United States has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs and 850,000 professional and business services and information jobs, many of which have been shipped overseas. In fact, up to 14 million white-collar jobs could be sent overseas in the coming years, according to a study by the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics housed at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Job Tracker Makes it Easy to Find Companies that Ship U.S. Jobs Overseas
Visitors to the Job Tracker site can search the database by company name or ZIP code, or by ZIP code and industry. Within seconds, detailed results are culled from a database that draws from more than a dozen sources, including U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance records, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, company annual reports and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The Job Tracker site also enables visitors to report companies exporting jobs in their communities and send a fax to Bush and anti-worker members of Congress urging them to stop rewarding companies with tax incentives to export American jobs.
The Bush administration has promoted the export of U.S. jobs through faulty trade and tax policies and labeled sending jobs overseas as good for the nation in its February 2004 Economic Report of the President.
Kerry’s Economic Plan Includes Creating and Keeping Jobs in America
In contrast, presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) says he will strengthen the nation’s industrial base with a new tax credit to encourage manufacturers to create jobs and expand their operations in the United States. Kerry also will invest in new energy industries, restore technology and stop layoffs in education. He will review all of the nation’s existing trade deals to identify and fix problems in them, and he is committed to enforcing U.S. trade laws to protect America’s workers and companies.
“My economic policy is not to export American jobs but to reward companies for creating and keeping good jobs in America,” says Kerry, adding he will repeal every tax break and loophole that rewards CEOs and corporations for shipping American jobs overseas.
Exporting jobs is a key issue for working families in the 2004 elections, says Wendy Meath, a member of Machinists Local 459 in St. Paul, Minn. Meath, who was employed for 31 years by Home Products International, recently lost her job when the company moved its operations to Mexico.
“My fellow workers are not OK. Their unemployment has run out, they have no health insurance and they have been unable to find jobs,” Meath says. “America needs to wake up and realize our situation is not unique.” Meath, who spoke at the Sept. 16 WORKING AMERICA press conference, was among 15,000 union members who walked door to door Sept. 2, the night President Bush addressed the Republican National Convention, to talk with a million union household members across the country about issues critical to working families.
Take Action
· Visit WORKING AMERICA’s Job Tracker and find out how many jobs in your community have been shipped overseas.
· Tell Bush and anti-worker members of Congress to stop rewarding companies with tax incentives to export American jobs.
More
· Learn about the crisis in manufacturing and the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council’s agenda to revitalize U.S. manufacturing.
· Find out more about the jobs crisis in America.
· See how John Kerry and George W. Bush compare on working family issues.
· Read Kerry’s plan to keep good U.S. jobs at home for a stronger America.
· Read “The New Wave of Outsourcing” by the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics.
· Join WORKING AMERICA.
