Thread: Q. about tracking CAFTA job destruction

Hi,
New on ALI-PAC. Apologies if this has already been worked and answered. I read that the numbers of jobs sacrificed to NAFTA are known. Is there a procedure (or whatever) that will track jobs being lost to CAFTA and jobs that are going to be sacrificed to CAFTA?

Rep. Lamar Smith answered my email that (blah blah) CAFTA will create more jobs than it destroys (heard that a million times), but he didn't say which country these jobs will be created in.

One more question, if I may, about the CAFTA misses deadline article. Does the US have to obey CAFTA now anyway?

Thanks much,
Coto

Welcome Coto,

Cute Avatar! Is that a russian blue cat?

Several of our users are pros on CAFTA, but JP and LostMummy will be very interested in your question. I will send them both private messages to make sure they see this and answer.

William

Hi, Coto. Happy to have you join us.

You can usually find anything you're looking for by searching google.

Originally Posted by Coto

Hi,
New on ALI-PAC. Apologies if this has already been worked and answered. I read that the numbers of jobs sacrificed to NAFTA are known. Is there a procedure (or whatever) that will track jobs being lost to CAFTA and jobs that are going to be sacrificed to CAFTA?

Rep. Lamar Smith answered my email that (blah blah) CAFTA will create more jobs than it destroys (heard that a million times), but he didn't say which country these jobs will be created in.

One more question, if I may, about the CAFTA misses deadline article. Does the US have to obey CAFTA now anyway?

Thanks much,
Coto

Coto,
Weclome to ALIPAC.

I don’t know who or what entity if any is tracking the job loss on CAFTA. We here in NC have already lost jobs due to companies moving to the CAFTA region. We all know how those that supported CAFTA will try to make us believe that it will do more good than harm, but many of them are the same ones that voted for NAFTA.

CAFTA is a Treaty. The U.S. has signed to supposedly improve the economic conditions of CAFTA countries and create more US jobs, and to stop the tariffs on US exports going into the CAFTA region. The treaty can always be modified or eliminated with a vote in congress and the senate, but it will take a lot for those who whored themselves out and supported it to change their votes.

The only way to stop it is to change who those are that are representing us come November.

Welcome Coto,

One more question, if I may, about the CAFTA misses deadline article. Does the US have to obey CAFTA now anyway?

The one thing I would add is that it is the USA pushing CAFTA, and they would do anything to see that it passes. Not the other way around.

Hi COTO and Welcome to ALIPAC

I dimly recall reading somewhere about a site that would track job loss from CAFTA.

So, I did a search and I guess it was this trade watch site.

http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=1238

CAFTA Damage Report tracks results of CAFTA vote in key districts
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch has announced the launch of the CAFTA Damage Report, an on-going series of reports that track the consequences of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in districts where members of Congress voted for the agreement despite opposition from constituents or their own misgivings.

But this only has reports about a few Congressional districts and covers manufacturing jobs from 1998 to 2005. It doesn't have much specific data on CAFTA. (But maybe it will have specific CAFTA data, as soon as CAFTA starts getting implemented.)

Here's a report for the infamous Robin Hayes of the 8th district for NC.

A rising trade deficit leads to the loss of jobs in traded sectors – namely, good jobs in the manufacturing sector. A decade of rising trade deficits has contributed to the loss of 3.2 million U.S. manufacturing jobs between 1998 and 2004, the most recent period for which complete numbers are available.1 If the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has the same effect as NAFTA, it will further worsen job losses. Some states are already beginning to see CAFTA-caused job loss, as a recent Associated Press story reported that more than 200 jobs in Edenton, N.C., will be lost when a local manufacturing plant moves to Central America next year as a result of CAFTA. This pattern is likely to be repeated across the United States.

Recently released monthly manufacturing employment figures show a steady job loss for the 8th district, represented in the U.S. Congress by Hayes. According to these numbers, the Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord metropolitan area suffered the loss of 25,400 manufacturing jobs between October 1998 and October 2005, or nearly 23 percent of the total. This trend toward the loss of good jobs was also felt at the state level, where 218,500 manufacturing jobs were lost between October 1998 and October 2005.

At home in North Carolina, Hayes is still receiving significant criticism for his support for CAFTA, for which he provided a deciding vote when the agreement passed the House by a 217-215 vote. (A shift of one vote would have meant a tie and defeat for CAFTA.) CAFTA, like NAFTA before it, contains rules that give U.S. corporations incentives to relocate production abroad in order to take advantage of lower labor costs and more lax environmental enforcement.

But it's a good site though and it encourages the citizenry to pressure their reps. And that's always a good thing.

Moved this message from an inadvertantly started new thread

Hi,
Thanks much for replying. It's a honor to be here. You guys, wow, lotsa hard work going on.

If I may speculate... it would seem that if Dept of Labor either doesn't publish jobs transferred from the US to CAFTA countries, that a very crude idea, or projection could still be ascertained by factories closing. Hypothetically, if you take a pharmaceutical company that employs 5000, they close and build a replacement factory in Columbia (lotsa drug expertise there), then there goes 5000 more to CAFTA.

Well, hmmmm, in the hypothetical example above there might be a few replacement jobs (but just in that example) - the replacement jobs are drug dealers (except they enter from the South, of course).

Lamar Smith must believe his constituants are total airheads. Ahem. cough, choke, gag, honorable Smith, voters can still read ballots.

Ummmm, Lost Mummy knows me (uh on line at least) from back when RescueAmericanJobs was going strong. I had a tendency, back then, to (how do I put this delicately?) "displease" the bad guys. One of these days, there's gonna be a loud knocking on my door.

Sure appreciate you guys taking time to respond.

In solidarity,
Coto

Hi, Lost Mummy,
I bookmarked his website, looks like he'll update it as he finds out stuff. With Communist China and CAFTA countries "fighting over" whatever manufacturing jobs remain, tracking pro-America companies would be easier to do.

My 2 cents worth, I want to say thanks for all your hard work on the Globaism Scorecard; it gets scarier every time I look at it.

I've asked, Lost Mummy, on the other website, "how bad does the situation have to deterioriate to for politicians to take notice?" Found the answer here:

http://www.ilw.com/articles/2005,1114-hethmon.pdf

They're going to let it deterioriate "all the way - no limit!" Should I, instead, be asking "which conspiracy does CAFTA belong to?" -or- should the question be, "which lobbyist bribe scandal was CAFTA belong to?"

Laters,
Coto

Originally Posted by Darlene

The one thing I would add is that it is the USA pushing CAFTA, and they would do anything to see that it passes. Not the other way around.

Looks like that will include sending jobs to South America "up front" even before the other countries sign on.

Robin Hayes I was hoping the next time I read his name would be that he was cleaning out his office. That man sold his district, the state and the entire United States of America!

Anyway, I found this

The CAFTA Damage Report will be regularly updated and available at www.tradewatch.org