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CWA: Bush Economic Team Fails Workers
Following is a statement by President Morton Bahr, Communications Workers of America, on remarks by President Bush's top economic advisor in praise of outsourcing:
Washington, D.C. -- The remarks made this week on outsourcing by Greg Mankiw, head of President Bush's economic team, are outrageous, and a real blow to millions of working families who are facing the worst job outlook in decades.
Nearly 10 million Americans are unemployed – and three million of them lost their jobs on Bush's watch. Millions more are underemployed, working two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet, or are simply too discouraged and have given up what is a futile search for work.
But don't tell that to Mankiw. The chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors says sending manufacturing, information technology, customer service jobs -- and just about any other work – to India and other low-wage countries is "good trade policy."
Americans stand to lose 600,000 jobs a year to India and other nations over the next decade, according to economists. That doesn't bother the President's economic team. Mankiw has called the outsourcing of U.S. workers' livelihoods a "new and positive chapter in world trade liberalization." Tell that to the 6,000 Sprint Corp. customer service workers who just learned their jobs are headed overseas. And why? Because the Sprint employees in the United States aren't working for $2 a day.
All along, the Bush administration has been trying to sell an economic plan that misrepresents what in reality is a devastating job picture for U.S. workers. Bush's economic team has predicted that 2.6 million new jobs would be created by the end of 2004. This same group got it wrong last year when it predicted that 1.7 million new jobs would be created in 2003; instead, 53,000 jobs were lost.
Now, it seems that Mankiw and Bush's economic team are actively promoting even greater job losses for U.S. workers.
In his State of the Union address last month, President Bush extolled a training partnership with the nation's community college network to help American workers better match their skills with available jobs. The question he was asked, but that remains unanswered, is "what jobs should workers be training for, Mr. President, since manufacturing, high tech and information processing jobs are being shifted overseas at a record pace?"
This week, working families got their answer. Apparently the Bush administration believes that almost every job can and should be shifted offshore.
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Washington, D.C. -- The remarks made this week on outsourcing by Greg Mankiw, head of President Bush's economic team, are outrageous, and a real blow to millions of working families who are facing the worst job outlook in decades.
Nearly 10 million Americans are unemployed – and three million of them lost their jobs on Bush's watch. Millions more are underemployed, working two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet, or are simply too discouraged and have given up what is a futile search for work.
But don't tell that to Mankiw. The chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors says sending manufacturing, information technology, customer service jobs -- and just about any other work – to India and other low-wage countries is "good trade policy."
Americans stand to lose 600,000 jobs a year to India and other nations over the next decade, according to economists. That doesn't bother the President's economic team. Mankiw has called the outsourcing of U.S. workers' livelihoods a "new and positive chapter in world trade liberalization." Tell that to the 6,000 Sprint Corp. customer service workers who just learned their jobs are headed overseas. And why? Because the Sprint employees in the United States aren't working for $2 a day.
All along, the Bush administration has been trying to sell an economic plan that misrepresents what in reality is a devastating job picture for U.S. workers. Bush's economic team has predicted that 2.6 million new jobs would be created by the end of 2004. This same group got it wrong last year when it predicted that 1.7 million new jobs would be created in 2003; instead, 53,000 jobs were lost.
Now, it seems that Mankiw and Bush's economic team are actively promoting even greater job losses for U.S. workers.
In his State of the Union address last month, President Bush extolled a training partnership with the nation's community college network to help American workers better match their skills with available jobs. The question he was asked, but that remains unanswered, is "what jobs should workers be training for, Mr. President, since manufacturing, high tech and information processing jobs are being shifted overseas at a record pace?"
This week, working families got their answer. Apparently the Bush administration believes that almost every job can and should be shifted offshore.
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