[CTC] Critics Seek Deets On KORUS FTA Changes

[Dolan Mike]

Workers rally against free trade at Blue Heron

By Raymond Rendleman

The Oregon City News, Jul 7, 2010 

Description: (news photo)

 

Arthur Stamoulis, director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, leads labor
activists in a campaign for displaced workers outside Oregon City's Blue
Heron paper mill. 

 

The bankruptcy-plagued Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City again became a
flashpoint for frustration as displaced workers and union leaders gathered
there last week to release a new study about the effect of free-trade
agreements on Oregon's high unemployment rate.

Arguing that trade-related job loss accounted for a significant portion of
Oregon's ongoing unemployment problem, they touted statistics showing that
last year was unprecedented in Oregon for trade job losses. U.S. Labor
Department figures showed losses more than 300 percent above average.

"Most of these job losses are completely preventable," said Arthur
Stamoulis, director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign.

For new labor, environmental and consumer-safety standards, Stamoulis
encouraged local Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) to support a bill known as the
TRADE Act, which is gaining ground through the support of more than 100
Democratic members of Congress.

Explaining his opposition to the across-the-board reforms proposed, Schrader
said that a compromise for free and fair trade should be made with each U.S.
trading partner individually.

"The particular trade bill they're pushing is a little too prescriptive," he
said. "It would require all foreign governments to submit to a bunch of
terms prescribed by the U.S., (and) I'm worried that would curtail trade."

Saying reform couldn't come too soon, worker advocates rebutted that
trade-related job loss accounted for a significant portion of Oregon's
overall worker displacement over the past year, and they don't see the
problem turning around without stricter regulations. Between March 2009 and
March 2010, 9,955 Oregonians (or 26.6 percent of the total 37,400 jobs lost
over that time period) lost their jobs to trade, according to the data
obtained by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign. 

Schrader said he appreciated the type of work at companies like Blue Heron,
and he wants to expand benefits for displaced workers to learn new trades
and find skilled work elsewhere. Laid-off Blue Heron employees are among the
nearly 10,000 people in this state who have lost jobs due to competition
from imports over the past year; the labor department certified the plant
last month to receive federal "Trade Adjustment Assistance."

Union leaders claim workers at the Blue Heron plant resent having their
skilled jobs "adjusted" by competition from China, where laws allow much
less stringent environmental and labor standards. The local plant is
employee-owned and has refocused its efforts to recycled paper milling.

"We don't view government assistance as a good thing," said Gregory
Pallesen, vice president of the Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers,
the union that represents employees at Blue Heron and other paper mills
losing employment in the area. "If you want to talk about making good jobs,
let's start by preventing the loss of the good, green ones we already have."

Pallesen estimates that, since its bankruptcy announcement last year, 40 to
50 of Blue Heron's approximately 200 workers have been laid off on a
permanent basis.

Schrader acknowledges that China has caused a lot of pressure on local paper
mills, but maintains that such processing plants will not be the answer to
the recession.

"Increased exports will be absolutely essential to get us out of these
economic doldrums," he said. "If we're going to do free trade, other
countries need to rethink their subsidies."

Dave King, who was laid off from a paper mill in Camus, came to Oregon City
to express that he had almost given up hope. He's seen a long, steady race
to the bottom since the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented
in 1994.

"All the industrial work has gone overseas," King said. "What happened to
Mexico came here in terms of privatization and ordinary, hardworking people
being left out."

http://oregoncitynewsonline.com/news/story_2nd.php?story_id=1278445777857820
00

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20100707/0ecdf7e0/attachment-0002.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 71446 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20100707/0ecdf7e0/attachment-0002.jpeg>