Democracy Roundtable: Right Changes Now Would Build Strong Future
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What will the economy be like in 2021? That’s the question five progressive experts venture to answer as part of an online roundtable in the latest issue of Democracy: The Journal of Ideas. Twice a year, the magazine poses a question to experts about what they foresee for the country in 2021 and posts the discussion on its website and in the publication.
The winter 2010 theme is focused on jobs and the economy in 2021. AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee, one of the panel experts on this subject, said if we are prosperous and economically strong in 2021, it’s because in 2010 we recognized that we were on a path that was leading to greater erosion of the middle class.
The path that we were on was also undermining our ability to innovate and reap the fruits of innovation. I totally agree with the need for massive and targeted public investments in all the areas that we’ve talked about: clean energy, infrastructure, skills and education.
Lee on C-SPAN: Stop Outsourcing and Rebuild Middle Class
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If the U.S. economy is going to recover from the recession, we must stop exporting U.S. jobs and figure out a way to produce more products here to compete successfully in the global economy. In the past decade alone, more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and 850,000 information sector jobs have disappeared—many of which have been shipped overseas.
Appearing this morning on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee said we need a combination of new policies to create jobs and prevent the flood of jobs moving offshore. We need to change our trade policy, eliminate tax policies that give breaks to companies that move jobs offshore, act to force China’s government and others to halt manipulating their currencies and invest in our own infrastructure and education among other things, she said.
Restoring Manufacturing Key to Saving American Dream
A much larger and more robust manufacturing sector is the key to rebuilding the American economy and restoring faith in the American Dream, political, business and labor leaders said yesterday.
At the Conference on the Renaissance of American Manufacturing in Washington, D.C., several speakers agreed the free fall in U.S. manufacturing has cost millions of good jobs and put the country at a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. The future could be even dimmer if polices aren’t adopted to staunch the decline–because as the nation loses manufacturing, we also lose the research and development that lead to future innovations and new industries, they said.
Former U.S. Sen. Don Riegle (D-Mich.) noted that U.S. competitors—China, Germany and other European countries—utilize strategies that emphasize domestic development and production. The United States has no strategy, just a mistaken blind faith in free trade. In effect, the United States gives away jobs, production and technology to China and other countries, then buys back the products in the form of imports, he said.
Join the Debate on Fair/Free Trade
Those of us in the union movement know pitting “free” trade against “fair” trade is a false dichotomy: Making trade agreements that ensure basic standards for workers and the environment—fair trade—does not exclude trade deals that open markets and move goods—”free” trade.
With that caveat in mind, we want to point out an opportunity to take part in a debate sponsored by the British publication, The Economist, which tackles the
tension between freedom and fairness and [tries] to resolve whether action on one front is more important, and what forms such action might take.
The “Open for Debate” forum features two economists with arguments for/against fair trade and an opportunity to vote in the debate and add your view. In an oddly British twist, you can change your vote as many times as you wish, but you get only one vote. You’ll need to sign up, but it’s free. Comments are moderated.
Symposium to Tackle Challenge of Putting America Back to Work
The contrast is staggering: While Wall Street celebrates record earnings for the fat cats at the top financial firms, the reality on Main Street is that more than one in six working Americans is now unemployed or underemployed.
In the midst of this jobless “recovery,” leading policymakers and experts will gather to discuss how public policy should respond to this unprecedented unemployment crisis at the conference, “The Jobs Deficit: The Challenge of Putting America Back to Work.” The New America Foundation’s Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Symposium is sponsoring the discussion Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C.
For more information and to register for the symposium, click here.
New Trade Policies Needed to Protect Workers
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Columbia University law professor Mark Barenberg proposes new strategies to ensure that trade agreements protect and advance workers’ rights and says “we should incorporate labor rights and standards in the fundamental ground rules of the new global economy.”
Barenberg is author of a report released today, “Sustaining Workers’ Bargaining Power in an Age of Globalization.” In the report, he argues that trade pacts need rules to allow human rights organizations to constantly monitor whether U.S. trading partners actually comply with international labor rules.
The report, released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) as part of its Agenda for Shared Prosperity, suggests specific policies that would result in the same type of tough enforcement rules to protect workers’ rights that now exist for violations of property rights in trade agreements.
Workers’ Rights Good for Business
The union movement wants the Obama administration to develop a coherent trade policy that advances key domestic priorities and makes our nation more competitive in a global economy.
That means rebuilding our infrastructure, investing in education, cleaning up the environment, creating green jobs and providing affordable health care, AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee told a group of business leaders today in Washington.
Speaking at a forum on “Labor and the American Trade Agenda” sponsored by the Global Business Dialogue, Lee said the economic strategies of the past two administrations relied on privatization and global deregulation, ending up with a failed economy based on “asset bubbles, debt and borrowed money.”
Old Economy Doesn’t Work—Time for a New Model
An economy in which the rest of the world produces and America consumes no longer works. The United States must begin to make more of the things we consume. That will require a new vision for our economy and concrete actions to change the core policies that created the current global economic crisis.
Speaking during a workshop at the America’s Future Now conference this morning, several members of a panel on global economic strategy said the key to long-term economic recovery is the creation of a new economic model that emphasizes production and savings, not consumption.
That new vision must include actions to fight the major causes of the collapse of U.S. manufacturing—currency manipulation, trade policies that foster a race to the cheapest sources of labor, tax policies that encourage companies to move offshore and the imbalance of power between workers and employers.
AFL-CIO Opposes Panama Deal, Calls for Trade Policy Review
BREAKING: President Obama has delayed moving the Panama trade deal because of union objections. Read more here.
Congress should not consider the U.S.-Panama trade agreement until Panama implements labor law and tax reforms and the Obama administration lays out a comprehensive, principled trade strategy for the United States.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee today, AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee said the union movement will oppose the Panama deal unless these issues are resolved.
The AFL-CIO has called on Panama to bring its labor laws into compliance with the International Labor Organization’s (ILO’s) minimum standards. For example, Panama’s laws effectively prohibit the forming of a union in most workplaces and seriously limit the right to strike. A growing problem in Panama are the laws that allow employers to circumvent unions by repeatedly hiring the same workers on a temporary basis, rather than hiring them as full-time workers, Lee said.
Trade Deals Must Protect Everyone, Not Just Investors
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| Workers across the world, like these in South Korea, are opposed to trade deals that do not protect workers’ rights. |
Like the other provisions in U.S. trade agreements, the rules governing U.S. investment abroad and foreign investment in this country unfairly favor those with the capital while giving short shrift to workers and the environment.
Testifying before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade last week, AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee said the investment provisions in U.S. trade agreements are out of balance, protecting investors’ rights, but not requiring investors to take responsibility to protect workers’ rights and the environment.
U.S. investors invested $333 billion in other countries in 2007 and $318 billion in 2008, more than any other country. The United States also was the largest recipient of foreign investment with $238 billion invested in 2007 and $325 billion in 2008.
