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October 21, 2004

Heidi Miller probably never expected to be holding a press conference. A machinist at Trak International, a Wisconsin firm that produced telescopic work platforms for construction and the military, Miller, 45, made $40,000 per year and was saving money for the future. That was until JLG Industries acquired Trak in 2003. JLG shut down facilities in Minnesota and Wisconsin and relocated to the Czech Republic.

On October 20, Miller now collecting unemployment benefits and training for a job in hotel management, addressed Wisconsin media representatives at a press conference called by the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council (IUC). She called JLGs shut-downs and offshore move "domestic terrorism."

The press conference was called to release an IUC study proving that 61 percent of the manufacturing job losses in Wisconsin over the last three years were trade-related.

The report, which employed the new AFL-CIO, Working America Job Tracker program, (LINK) follows a similar report from Ohio last month. (LINK).

Since January 2001, the United States has lost more than 2.7 million manufacturing jobs and 850,000 professional service and information sector jobs. In Wisconsin alone, 67,500 manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2001, meaning 1 in 9 Wisconsin manufacturing jobs have disappeared.

Union researchers contend that the Wisconsin report is "conservative" because the trade survey only covered 40 percent of Wisconsins manufacturing jobs lost during the three-year period. The IUC searched Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance databases, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices, company annual reports and SEC filings.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), an industry and business group, denounced the AFL-CIO report. According to the Madison Capital Times, a spokesman for the group called it a "politically-motivated doomsday scenario" released to help the Presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry. The business group rejected the charge that the U.S. economy was suffering from lack of enforcement of U.S. trade laws, telling the Capital Times: "Wisconsin is the star in the national economy..."

Bob Baugh, IUCs executive director, said that the massive loss of Wisconsin manufacturing jobs was the direct result of flawed trade and tax policies. He rejected the criticism of the WMC, contending that the AFL-CIO has been arguing for more effective U.S. trade policies for many years, including during Democratic administrations.

Baugh challenged the argument of some economists who contend that current trade policies help Americans by making available cheaper consumer goods. He told the Journal Times: "Getting cheap products from Asia might seem to help American consumers, but I dont think you can love the American consumer and hate the American worker, and thats whats happening here."

Consumers, Baugh contends, are hurt in the long run. "Its short-sighted. Youre destroying your base for the job creation of the future." Many of those jobs, he claims, are in technical fields such as engineering, design and research and development.

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