Huffman: NAFTA caused a cascade of damage to U.S.
By Glenn Huffman
Published: October 06, 2010
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Morganton, NC --
Before the NAFTA agreement, prior to the early 1990s, if you wanted a job you simply went to different businesses such as manufacturers, contractors or public services and you submitted a resume and application. You might talked with a personnel office manager. If the company had a need for your skills, it would hire you for the spot or file your application for the next available job opening.

Now, because there has been such a migration of industry and manufacturing jobs and an influx of immigrants willing to work cheap hourly rates with no benefits, corporations no longer have to rely on traditional personnel-hiring process.

As corporate consolidations of power have relaxed import and export laws, it has made it possible to distribute our greatest wealth and natural resources to other countries poised to manufacture goods using unskilled labor at slave-labor prices. The global trade laws at hand have made it easier for corporations to exploit our resources while creating a labor imbalance that has resulted in a depressed job market, which has lead to loss of wage and labor laws that have ultimately driven the standard of living down for the middle-class workers.

These lower-paying jobs create a lower tax base. As a result, there is a decline in consumer spending and a huge gap in property gains and all other taxes associated with traditional spending.

As corporate America migrates its industrial operations and assets to Mexico, China and Malaysia and other places around the globe, they, the corporations, use the argument that foreign competition is driving down wages and benefit packages of those still employed here in America.
It also has become a trend among American corporations to hold large meetings using fancy charts and graphs showing profit margins and comparing the average cost of employees in the United States to those of slave labor in underdeveloped nations in an effort to justify slashing wages and benefits packages and increasing hours without overtime compensation.

Yes, corporate America and the stockholders are the ones that pushed so hard for free trade and global economics to increase profits and diminish wages and environmental controls while consuming more and more of our nation’s resources.

Meanwhile, the American middle-class worker has endured stagnant wages, decreased benefits, longer hours and the threat of total job loss.
The free-trade policies are not just wracking the workplace; they have created economic problems for local, city and state governments, resulting in lower wages and less tax revenue — less money for local, state and federal projects — and that means taxes must go up for the working people.

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