Aug. 13—Instead of creating new jobs and championing the interests of America’s workers, the Bush administration actively supports policies that raise the nation’s record trade deficits, subject workers to unfair trade practices and increase the number of good jobs sent overseas, according to The Bush Record on Shipping Jobs Overseas, a new AFL-CIO issue brief.
The brief finds President George W. Bush refuses to fix the flawed international trade, tax and investment policies that destroy good American jobs. Instead, he pursues policies that further erode the standard of living of U.S. workers. For example:
Bush supports tax breaks for companies that move production offshore and other policies that destroy American jobs.
Bush is actively negotiating trade agreements that do not contain enforceable workers’ rights, such as the right to form a union. The Bush administration refuses to enforce workers’ rights provisions in existing agreements.
Bush’s budget cuts shortchange programs designed to help displaced workers and protect workers’ rights overseas.
As a result of these policies, the brief says, millions of American jobs have been lost and “every time President Bush has decided to help companies ship jobs overseas, America’s workers and their families are hurt.”
“The nation’s record-setting trade deficit in June, up 58 percent over the same month two years ago, is damning confirmation of the administration’s failed trade policies,” says AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.
The Bush record on exporting jobs overseas is a sharp contrast to the plans of presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), says Machinists President R. Thomas Buffenbarger. “As president, Kerry plans to include workers’ rights in trade agreements and repeal loopholes in the law that allow corporations to exploit the tax code to move good American jobs overseas.”
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