Trade agreement putting the squeeze on workers

Joe Guzzardi
April 24, 2015
As seen in:
Lodi News-Sentinel

According to a recently published Hamilton Institute report that analyzed earnings, employment and occupations from 1990-2013, American workers without a college diploma are increasingly less likely to work full time during the last two decades than in past eras. Correspondingly, non-college educated workers are therefore more likely to work in low-paying jobs than in the past.

The new study revealed that among men age 30 to 45 with a high school degree or some college, the percentage of full-time workers fell from 76 percent in 1990 to 68 percent in 2013; the share of males in the same age bracket who did not work at all during the same period shot up to 18 percent from 11 percent. Data for women is equally dreary. Although their employment rates fell less than men with similar education profiles, women by a wide margin were less likely to be employed than men, 69 percent versus 82 percent.

Logically, steep earnings declines accompanied the dramatic reduction in hours worked. Earnings for men with a high school degree dropped 13 percent; women’s wages stayed more or less flat at plus 3 percent.

Yet even though U.S. employment is mired in a profound and possibly irreversible downward trend, Congress is pushing for a new trade agreement that would include the free flow of workers from abroad to come to America.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being negotiated behind closed doors between White House officials and pro-big business Republicans. As TPP’s details slowly leaked out, critics have called it the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement on steroids. California is still reeling from the accord’s fallout. NAFTA affected U.S. workers mostly in California and Texas, in two principal ways.

First, more than 700,000 production jobs moved to Mexico. Minimum wage service and retail jobs were added along the border because of increased truck movement, but their aggregate impact paled in comparison to the losses.

Second, NAFTA gave employers the hammer which they used to force their employees to accept lower wages and benefits or see their jobs outsourced to Mexico, an eventuality that often happened anyway.

Although the American public has been locked out of conversations regarding TPP, more than 600 corporations have eagerly provided their input which would, if adopted, accrue to their bottom line profits. Since TPP represents an agreement with Asian rim countries, many workers — or “temporary entries” as the agreement refers to them — would soon arrive in California from Malaysia, Japan, Communist Vietnam and eventually China. As the Hamilton Institute report indicated, California’s economy can ill afford more under-skilled workers.

Earlier this week, the Senate introduced S. 995, the official trade bill. If approved, it would surrender Congress’ constitutionally authorized authority over trade to President Obama. Democrats, historically pro-labor and who have voted straight down the party line with Obama on his legislation, are appalled.

Sen. Barbara Boxer was one of 23 signatories on a letter sent to Obama urging him to “keep the faith” with American workers. Outrage is mounting in California and elsewhere against TPP. Congress and not the White House must have the final say on trade agreements.

Joe Guzzardi retired from the Lodi Unified School District after a 25-year career, and is currently a Californians for Population Stabilization senior writing fellow. Contact him at [email protected].