Sen. Brown, AFL-CIO Respond to McCain Speech on Trade
Monday, June 23, 2008
For
Immediate Release Contact:
Steve Smith
202-637-5018
Sen. Brown, AFL-CIO Respond to McCain
Speech on Trade By
Calling
for New
Direction, Denouncing McCain Support
of Bush Policies
“Our Communities Are Being
Devastated,” Hershey, Penn.
Factory Worker Says
(Washington,
June 20) – In response to Sen.
John McCain’s speech on trade policy this
afternoon in Ottawa,
Canada, Sen.
Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined AFL-CIO
Policy Director Thea Lee and Calvin Smith, a
factory worker from Hershey, Penn., to
call for fair trade policies that
lift up workers here and abroad. They
denounced McCain’s plan to continue the
Bush trade policies – which McCain detailed
today -- that have led to the loss
of millions of American jobs and an erosion of
workers’ rights around the globe.
“Instead of delivering a
speech from
Ottawa,
Canada, Senator
McCain should visit Ottawa, Ohio, where
the Phillips plant closed,” Brown
said. “We need trade policies that create new
jobs at home, not ship them to
Mexico.
We need a new direction, not
a third Bush
term.”
Today in Ottawa, McCain reiterated
his
strong support for “free trade” at any cost,
despite the job loss and growing
wage inequality exacerbated by current
U.S.
trade policy. In
his speech, McCain defended NAFTA saying
it is “critical to
the
future of so many Canadian and American
workers and businesses.” In fact,
flawed trade deals like NAFTA have contributed
to the loss of more than 3
million manufacturing jobs since 2001 and an
erosion of real wages. McCain told
workers in Michigan in
April that he believed those good
jobs are gone and “not coming
back.”
McCain’s record in support of the
failed Bush trade agenda shows he’s
pandering to multinational corporations, often
at the expense of working
families, Lee said. McCain has been an ardent
supporter of NAFTA, CAFTA,
normalized trade relations with
China and
pending deals with South Korea and
Colombia,
a
country in which more than 2,500 trade
unionists have been murdered since 1986.
“John McCain has never seen a trade
deal he didn’t like, even though the
consequences of those deals for workers in
America
and
around the world have been dire,” Lee said.
“Unfair trade has led to millions of
America’s
workers being forced into
the unemployment line and erosion of workers’
rights and living standards in our
trading partners. It’s time we chart a new
course on trade that benefits
American workers and domestic producers, yet
Sen. McCain is offering working
families more of the same job-destroying
policies.”
Calvin Smith, a machine operator at
the Hershey chocolate factory in
Hershey,
Penn.
for 18 years, said his plant has cut 650 jobs
this year, mostly due to
outsourcing to Mexico.
Those who remain at the plant
have been forced to take pay cuts and shift
changes just to keep their jobs.
Smith and other workers at the plant don’t
know how long they’ll be able to keep
their jobs before they’re outsourced as
well.
“Every day I wake up and worry I’ll be
told my job is being shipped off
to another country,” said Smith, a member of
Baker, Confectionary, Tobacco
Workers and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM) Local
464. “I’ve seen so many of my
friends and neighbors forced out of their jobs
by these rotten trade deals. Our
communities are being devastated.”
While trade is vital to
America’s
success in the global
economy, we must have policies that strengthen
workers’ rights and ensure that
global trade is benefiting everyone, not just
multinational corporations, Lee
and Brown said.
Earlier this month Brown introduced
The Trade Reform,
Accountability, Development and Employment
(TRADE)
Act.
The TRADE Act calls for a
long
overdue comprehensive review of
U.S.
trade policy. This bill also
outlines a new U.S. trade strategy—one that
puts a priority on the interests of
working class Americans, farmers, the
environment, and domestic
manufacturers.
A replay of today’s media call with Sen.
Brown, Lee and Smith is available beginning at
3:30 ET. For access, please
contact the AFL-CIO Media Outreach Department
at
202-637-5018
###
