Buy America: Good Policy, Not Protectionism
Despite the claims of its critics, the Buy America provisions in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is not protectionism, but a reasonable and legal response to the failure of global economic policies to benefit U.S. workers, writes Robert Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council.
In an article in the April 10, 2010, edition of the journal “One Issue, Two Voices,” Baugh argues that unregulated free market and so-called free trade policies have cost millions of U.S. jobs, destroyed communities and undermined the nation’s manufacturing base. Since 1998, the United States lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs—more than 6 million in all.
In “Economic Reality and Alarmist Rhetoric: Getting Real About America,” Baugh says it’s time to drop the hype that everybody wins in free trade and face the reality that current trade policy has become a vehicle to send good jobs offshore.
Lasting Memorial for Slaughtered Miners: Criminal Liability for Reckless Owners
As at Upper Big Branch, a coal dust and methane explosion ripped through the Westray mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, early in the morning. As at Upper Big Branch, rescuers discovered bodies, but toxic air forced them out before they could account for all missing miners. After five days, dangerous conditions permanently ended the search for the missing 11 at Westray. They’re entombed in the hazardous workplace that took their lives, a mine like Upper Big Branch that had been cited for dust and methane violations.
Nova Scotia erected a memorial over the spot where the bodies of the 11 are believed to be, with plaques bearing the names of the miners killed. West Virginia, no doubt, will commemorate those killed at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch.
But Canada did something more. It criminalized corporate disregard for worker safety. It’s called the Westray Law.
3,000 Steelworkers at Vale Inco Vote to Stay on Strike—and More Bargaining News
Some 3,000 United Steelworkers members at Vale Inco vote to stay on the picket line after eight months on strike, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
WORK STOPPAGES & LEGAL ACTION
USW, Vale Inco: Striking United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada overwhelmingly rejected an offer from Brazilian mining company Vale Inco on Friday. The 3,000 members of USW Local 6500 have now been on strike eight months and say the contract offer was “insulting.”
Stanford: Don’t Believe the Spin on Unions in Canada
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In a new column in the Globe and Mail, economist Jim Stanford looks at the way Big Business lobbyists use myths about Canada to block policy changes in the United States.
While much of this disinformation is aimed at health care reform, Stanford notes, corporate front groups and pundits also are using the same tactics to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.
Stanford notes that one method of attack is via hired-gun “studies” that misrepresent the facts. Speaking about one such “study” that uses Canadian data to try to argue that the Employee Free Choice Act would cost jobs, Stanford says:
This study’s methodology was bizarre and inconsistent; it wouldn’t pass muster in an elementary statistics course. But its findings are repeated ad nauseam by business lobbyists and anti-union editorialists, pulling out all the stops to keep American unions on the defensive.
Canada’s Experts Skewer Shoddy Study on Employee Free Choice
Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act often claim the legislation would hurt employment. They base that falsehood on a study paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its cronies, which purports to examine the effects of majority sign-up on the labor market in Canada.
Now, a devastating new critique shows the bought-and-paid-for “study,” by consultant Anne Layne-Farrar, is “misleading and poorly supported”—and that’s the nicest thing they could find to say. Just Labour, the Canadian labor-studies journal, features a series of articles on the Layne-Farrar piece by the experts who best know Canada’s labor market.
Among them, Noreen Pupo, director of the Center for Research on Work and Society at York University, says:
We refute efforts by business lobbyists opposing the [Employee Free Choice] Act to manipulate Canadian data and experience for purposes of defeating any strengthening of collective bargaining systems in the U.S. The vested interest of these business lobbyists in the continued erosion of collective bargaining in America has led them to misrepresent the Canadian experience.
NAFTA Has Failed; New Development Plan Needed
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The governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico must take serious and comprehensive measures to address the dual impact of the global economic recession and the 15-year legacy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), labor leaders of the three countries said in a joint declaration.
The “Tri-National Labor Declaration on Social and Economic Prosperity for North America” points out that the Leaders Summit in Mexico City earlier this week was an opportunity to lay out a new agenda for North America, one that could make our region competitive, sustainable and just.
NAFTA did not create thousands of promised good jobs—the jobs it did create were less stable, with lower wages and fewer benefits, the leaders said. Increased trade largely benefited the corporate elite in all three countries, and income inequality has also grown in the region, they said. And the economic crisis has only exacerbated the problems.
Canadian Scholars: Freedom to Form Unions Has Positive Impact
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A group of Canadian scholars is helping to cut through the myths and lay out the facts about the Employee Free Choice Act. These 100 scholars and professors agree workers need the freedom to form unions and bargain for a healthy economy.
In an open statement released yesterday, these 100 academics, who study a variety of disciplines at institutions across Canada, say wide access to collective bargaining in Canada is good for Canada’s economy. Contrary to the unsupported statements of corporate mouthpieces, Canada’s broad union membership hasn’t hurt its labor markets; indeed, in recent years, Canada—where some 31 percent of workers are in unions—has experienced lower unemployment than the United States.
Many Canadians have the choice of majority sign-up for forming unions; federally overseen sectors and workers in five provinces all have the option of using majority sign-up. In eight provinces, workers have access to first-contract arbitration.
Chamber of Commerce Sides with Foreign Embassies Against Buy American
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There they go again. Those running the show at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are attacking again the Buy American provision in the economic stimulus package.
Ignoring, once more, that Buy American makes fundamental economic sense by ensuring at least some of our taxpayer bailout money is invested in American-made productions, the Chamber is siding with foreign embassies battling the Buy American provisions. In a June 2 letter to lawmakers, Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, asked Congress to exclude Buy American provisions from all legislation.
More recently, the Chamber held a joint press conference June 11 with the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters to decry the Buy American provisions in the stimulus. For a trade association with “U.S.” in its name, siding with foreign corporations against those in the United States is, well, you fill in the word that best describes it.
U.S., Canadian Union Federations Urge Cooperation in Talks Today
As President Obama meets with Canada’s leaders today for the first time to discuss a range of key bilateral and global issues, the heads of the United States and Canadian trade federations are urging both countries to:
- Work cooperatively to address the current global economic crisis.
- Review and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
- Adopt a series of complementary policies necessary to build a strong, fair economy for workers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
