When Congress rushes through foreign trade agreements, proponents assure us that we'll take care of the workers affected by unfair foreign trade.
Last week, the Senate had the chance to match its words with actions by passing an extension of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program (TAA) and the improved Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC).
Both programs expired on February 12. Legislation to extend them passed the House last year with strong bipartisan support.
This legislation would have continued the Trade Adjustment Assistance program -- which helps dislocated workers who lost their jobs due to unfair foreign trade -- retrain for new jobs. It would have also extended the improved Health Coverage Tax Credit, a lifeline that allows retirees whose pensions have been jeopardized by plant closures -- including 5,000 Delphi retirees in Ohio -- afford health coverage.
Yet Washington politicians blocked an extension of these critical programs on Thursday evening. These politicians don't think twice about voting for a trade bill, but they dismiss American workers and retirees fighting to pay the bills.
Our actions bring consequences, and so does our inaction. TAA and the improved HCTC are expiring at the expense of Americans who worked hard and played by the rules, yet lost their jobs, their pensions, their health care -- or all three. These program help tens of thousands of Americans either get back to work or regain some measure of the financial security that has been stripped from them due to unfair foreign trade.
But the difficult reality faced by too many workers reliant on TAA and the HCTC reminds us of the effects of trade and globalization.
Just last month I visited the Mahoning Valley One Stop to listen to workers who are using TAA to develop new skills in order to find new and secure jobs. I was there with a simple message. We can't pass trade agreements that undermine Ohio workers and then turn our backs on those workers when their jobs are moved overseas.
The TAA and HCTC enhancements aren't expensive or complicated. In just the last two years, more than 155,000 additional trade-affected workers across the country who might not have been certified under the former TAA program became eligible for TAA assistance.
That's because under this program, unlike the old program, workers whose jobs are shipped to India or China -- or other countries with which we do not have a trade agreement -- are now eligible.
These Americans are rubber workers from Johnson Rubber Company in Wood County. They are furniture manufacturers from Masco in Jackson County, or aluminum castings manufacturers from Mansfield Brass and Aluminum in Richland County.
In addition, workers in the service industry are eligible for TAA.
These workers include engineers at Belcan Engineering in Cincinnati and computer programmers at Electronic Data Systems in Fairborn. It includes researchers at the Transportation Research Center in Moraine.
In total, more than 367,000 workers nationwide have been certified eligible for TAA since 2009. These workers use TAA to acquire new skills to return to work as quickly as possible.
Middle class families, American manufacturers and farmers, and community leaders across the country all know that TAA is a critical part of our nation's economic strategy. It helps the private sector hire workers with the right skills, and it helps workers transition into these jobs.
In addition, the HCTC program also helps these trade-affected workers and retirees who lose their benefits when their employer goes bankrupt. HCTC allows the workers and retirees purchase private health coverage to replace the employer-sponsored coverage they lost.
It is in no one's best interest for Americans to lose their private health insurance. The HCTC prevents tens of thousands of Americans from falling into the ranks of the uninsured, which can lead to increased need for Medicaid.
These are Americans who worked hard, were loyal to their companies, and earned their pensions and employer-sponsored health coverage day after day after day. That's until the day they watched it all evaporate.
The combination of TAA and HCTC is a winner for business, for workers, and for our economy. It will boost the economy. And it is too important for the country.
Our fight to extend these critical lifelines is far from over.
Follow Sen. Sherrod Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SenSherrodBrown
Systematic alteration of the accepted norms must be implemented. The actors in government are to subsumed by the plutocracy to even turn an ear to the reality which is on the streets of the nation. The exalted shall continue to preform their duties as partner to the oligarchs and voice justification of these policies (public austerity in the service of private debt) as necessary to the well being of the nation.
The question often raised repeatedly in the debate is, if I treat my employees well, then why is a union needed? The answer is short and simple:
• No. 1 is safety.
• No. 2 is that it provides a viable avenue of redress of employees concerns.
• No. 3 is collective bargaining to the benefit of the employees.
Always remember and never forget that the employer is in the business to make a profit. If a choice has to be made between advancing the working conditions of the employee vs. the detriment of management, then the employee loses every time.
Life and business are not fair. At least the union gives the average employee a fighting chance when dealing with corporate America. So, I encourage everyone to think twice before vilifying labor organizations. Without unions there would only be the "haves" and "have nots" and no middle class.
Mike
working conditions. It's a long list but not appreciated these days. So we
disagree. Take care.
Mike
Try doing some actual research, people ...
I've sent emails to my Congressman without any response, not even an automated one.
We now have a nation of technology and instant mass communication. Americans are more aware of Congressional apathy towards their constituents. We now know that huge corporations and the corrupt banking system are more important than Main Street Americans. We also know that corporate and extremist elements with lobbying resources have more influence on our own government than we do.
Many of us in the lower and upper middle classes believe that government no longer lends us an ear and that we are forgotten as we suffer through this poor economy that is primarily the fault of incompetent governing. Our government is presently asking a decimated lower and middle class to make sacrifices. Do we see any sacrifices on the behalf of Congress or the wealthy?
Congress needs to clean up its act and should start putting American citizens before corporate lobbyists. Legislation should be enacted for the good of the people instead of the good of big business. This is why we are a divided nation and will continue to be more divided.
It is certainly wrong for Congress to enact austerity before we are able to take care of ourselves.
"We the people" no longer have a voice, we can't afford it, we've been sold out by our "representative" government.
The only Jobs those in congress worry about, are their own.
And, anyone who would PUNISH American consumers because they believe American workers can't compete is simply immoral.
nothing at all wrong with protecting US jobs from unfair foreign competitors who use illegal subsidies, currency manipulation, IP theft, lax safety and environmental regulation and pennies on the dollar labor as away to subvert the US economy. nothing at all wrong with us promoting our own industry over unfair foreign competiton as well
in fact it is precisely the thing our elected officials should be doing and are actually constitutionally obligated to regulate trade, much like your china does to protect and promote your own industry
I'd recommend reading Sen. Brown's many writings on the subject of Free Trade. They exist all over the web ... and here on HuffPo.
I subscribe to his e-newsletters he generously shares with people outside his district. Most Senators won't do that because they have nothing to say and know nothing. You're lucky to have Sen. Brown, would you please clone the guy?
Once that threshold is crossed....they all want more and feel they that any assistance is money thT they are entitled to and the needy are stealing it from them.
Yet some obsolete systems that the Pentagon, ITSELF, wants to end is being blocked by progressive senators like Sherrod Brown; because some of their manufacturing plants are in their states.
We cannot eat our cake and have it too, Senator!
DoD Gates has said they don't need the spare engines but we're having to pay for them anyway if Congress does not cut that expense.
Please learn the difference between progressives and main stream Dems before you post.
With all due respect, Senator Brown, get real. Anyone paying attention for the last two years knows perfectly well that the only jobs you and your colleagues really care about protecting are those which gain you lots of television time and you're perfectly happy to keep throwing the rest of us under the bus time and time again. I'm sorry, Senator, but some of us have just seen and heard too much to consider Democrats any more credible on jobs than the GOP anymore.