Will Obama Finally Stand Up For Workers ?

One of the biggest scams perpetrated on the American people in the last 30 years has been the negotiation and passage of "free trade agreements" with other countries. Americans have been assured that these agreements are good for everyone, because the removal of trade barriers between countries would allow the United States to sell more of its goods in the other countries -- and that would result in jobs being created in this country.

But while that sounds good, that's not the way things work out (and I'm not sure they were ever really meant to work that way). The truth is that these "free trade agreements" are very good for corporations, but they are very bad for workers. That's because far more jobs are lost than are ever created in this country.

Once the trade barriers are removed by the agreement the corporations can export American jobs to these countries and take advantage of the much lower wages abroad. Then they can bring these goods back into America without paying import and other taxes. Even if jobs are not immediately exported the corporations can use the threat of their exportation to keep wages from rising. This is one of the primary reasons why workers' wages have been stagnant since the 1970s while corporate income (and income for the richest Americans) has skyrocketed.

And this was the way it was always supposed to work -- for the benefit of the rich and the corporations, not for working Americans. They were never really meant to create jobs in the United States -- that was said just to fool Americans into accepting them. That would have been bad enough, but then the Republicans went even further and started to cut unemployment assistance and job training for the Americans who lost their jobs.

Now there are three new "free trade agreements" that are pending (from the Bush administration) -- agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. The Republicans are saying that a failure to approve these new agreements is costing this country the new jobs they will create. Unfortunately for them many Democrats are finally waking up to the truth. There will be a lot more job loss than job creation when these new agreements are approved.

The Obama administration is now saying it will not submit the three new trade agreements to Congress for approval until Congress first approves a Trade Adjustment Assistance Program (a federal program to give the displaced workers unemployment assistance and job training). This has created another stand-off between the two parties. Republicans want to reward their corporate masters with the new agreements, but they don't want to help the workers that will be hurt by them.

If the Democrats truly had a spine they would just drop these job-killers altogether (and then put an import tax on the goods American corporations make abroad and bring back to this country for sale -- and eliminate the tax cuts for exporting jobs in the first place). But that's asking a lot of a party that has made a habit of giving in to Republican demands. A Trade Adjustment Assistance Program is probably the best we can hope for from the weak-kneed congressional Democrats (and the White House).

Will the Obama administration (and congressional Democrats) stand firm for American workers? No. But maybe they'll give them some assistance after costing them their jobs. At least that is what they are saying they'll do. I guess the best we can hope for is that they at least do that.