Free Trade vs. Jobs

LETTER
Free Trade vs. Jobs
Published: January 5, 2012

To the Editor:

“Factory Jobs Gain, but Wages Retreat” (“Working for Less” series, Business Day, Dec. 30) tells us just about everything we need to know about the collapse of the middle class and the greed of the top 1 percent.

During the Congressional debates over the North American Free Trade Agreement, permanent normal trade relations with China and other “free trade” agreements, corporate America and its representatives told us how beneficial these deals would be for the American worker.

Some of us never believed those arguments. Now the results are in. We have not only lost millions of well-paying manufacturing jobs as a result of unfettered free trade, but the race to the bottom with China and other low-wage countries has also resulted in drastic pay cuts throughout what remains of our manufacturing sector.

A union job in manufacturing used to be a blue-collar ticket to a middle-class life and the gold standard for working-class jobs throughout the country. All that is disappearing as American wages in manufacturing are becoming “competitive” with China and other low-wage countries.