NAFTA'ed? Too Bad. (E-action Working America)

[Omaha Steve]

For years, America’s political leaders have pursued unsustainable and unacceptable trade deals that decimate American jobs.

For all those years, there has been broad consensus that—at a bare minimum—people who lose their jobs because of unfair trade deals like NAFTA deserve help and training for finding new jobs. After all, it’s the least our country can do for someone who works a lifetime in an industry, only to see his or her job shipped off to China, right?

But the basic bipartisan consensus to help people whose lives have been turned upside down by outsourcing ended Tuesday, when the House Republican leadership abruptly refused to schedule a vote to extend help for victims of outsourcing.

The expiring program—called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—provides financial help and training for workers who lose their jobs or see their hours or wages reduced due to outsourcing, offshoring or increased imports.

Sign our petition to Speaker Boehner: http://action.workingamerica.org/c/575/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1396

It says: “It’s inexcusable that our leaders keep promoting policies to encourage outsourcing. Doing nothing for the victims of these policies is totally unacceptable.”

When John Boehner and the House Republicans pulled TAA extension off the floor, they said they didn’t want to pick “winners and losers.” But the truth is, they’ve already picked the winners: CEOs, multinational corporations and Big Banks. And they’ve picked the losers, too: America’s workers. America’s victims of outsourcing depend on TAA to have any hope of working again—and now their hope is being taken away.

Sign our petition now: http://action.workingamerica.org/c/575/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1396

Tell Speaker Boehner and House Republicans that abandoning workers who lose their jobs because of unfair trade deals is unacceptable.

In solidarity,

Working America, AFL-CIO

P.S. Outsourcing is not an accident—and winner-take-all politics doesn’t happen because the government is a neutral party. Far too often, lawmakers collude with CEOs and Big Banks to rig our laws—and our whole economic system—in unfair ways that redistribute wealth upward.

While the hollowing out of American manufacturing has continued unabated for years, Democrats and Republicans—even when siding with CEOs on trade—consistently have understood that Congress must at least help those who lose their jobs because of unfair trade deals Congress passes. But apparently, Republican leaders in the House don’t understand this anymore.

Sign our electronic petition to Speaker Boehner. It says: “It’s inexcusable that our leaders keep promoting policies to encourage outsourcing. Doing nothing for the victims of these policies is totally unacceptable.” (We’ll copy your member of Congress, too.)