Hoffa Says U.S.-China Trade Policy Undercuts Middle Class, National Security

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa told a Senate panel today that U.S. trade policy is strangling democracy in China, national security in the United States and the middle class in both countries.

Hoffa testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Trade and Tourism on "Trade Relations with China." Workers' safety and prosperity in the United States is linked to labor standards in China, he said.

"I like the Chinese and wish them well, but I love and fight for U.S. workers," Hoffa said. "It is time that this administration and all of us in this room take control of our globalization policies to ensure that our workers benefit and our families are kept safe."

Hoffa outlined a series of steps for Congress and future administrations to take to help protect the middle class in the United States and to enhance national security. Those include ending Chinese currency manipulation, increasing inspection of food imports, eliminating tax breaks for corporations that move jobs to China and raising labor standards in that country.

In May, Hoffa led a delegation of Change to Win unions on a fact-finding mission to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, ending a decades-long freeze on relations with China's only union. Hoffa's visit convinced him that China currently is not building a middle class capable of sustaining economic growth through a domestic consumer market.

"China is setting the global norm for working standards around the world," Hoffa said. "Those standards are much too low workers in the U.S. and workers in China. We plan to work with all the worker advocates we met to improve those standards."

U.S. corporations doing business in China have used their influence to oppose modest changes in reforms to labor law, changes that would empower workers and promote democracy, Hoffa said.

Hoffa noted that the U.S. lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 as a result of our trade policies, especially with China.

"Our manufacturing loss is a matter of national security," he said. "We are losing our capability to supply our military troops with uniforms, ammunition and other essential items."

"The public has lost confidence in our trade policies," Hoffa continued. "U.S. trade policies lately seem to be more about the number of trade agreements signed rather than the results they achieve."

Hoffa urged Congress and the Bush administration to take a number of steps to improve U.S. trade policy toward China, including:

* To deal with the undervalued yuan, which is hurting U.S. workers and manufacturers. Congress should pass the Stabenow-Bunning-Bayh-Snowe bill, S.796, and the House counterpart, Ryan-Hunter, H.R. 782.


* To keep dangerous Chinese products from entering the U.S., the administration should increase testing and inspection of food imports, while Congress should pass legislation by Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to give the FDA the authority to approve countries eligible to import into the U.S.


* To leverage the issue of labor standards in China, Congress should pass S.367, the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act, introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. Future administrations should accept a Section 301 petition on labor rights in China.


* To prevent U.S. corporations from moving U.S. companies and jobs to China, Congress should eliminate tax preferences for companies to move offshore.


* To force China to open its markets and end its practice of dumping, future administrations should use existing trade rules aggressively and apply the remedies.