Labor & Employment Law

USW Files Complaint Against China?s Renewable Energy Subsidies

By James Parks

The United Steelworkers (USW) today filed a comprehensive trade case under Section 301 of the trade law claiming China has used hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, performance requirements, preferential practices and other trade-illegal activities to dominate the renewable energy market.

The 5,800-page petition, filed with the U.S. Trade Representative, identifies five major areas where China?s protectionist and predatory practices helped develop their green energy sector at the expense of production and job creation here in the United States. The actions violate the terms China agreed to when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the petition says. Under federal trade law, the Obama administration has 45 days from the date of filing to determine whether to accept the petition for further action.

?Green jobs are key to our future,? said USW President Leo Gerard.

Right now, China is taking every possible step?many of them illegal under international trade laws?to ensure that it will control that sector. America can?t afford to cede more of its manufacturing base to China.
 
It?s a national priority to reduce our dependence on foreign energy supplies. But if all we do is exchange our dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on Chinese alternative and renewable energy production equipment, we will have traded away our nation?s energy, economic and job security.

In a telephone press conference this morning, Gerard said the violations have helped Chinese companies expand their share of the world market for wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants and other clean energy equipment, at the expense of jobs in the United States and elsewhere.

USW Vice President Tom Conway told reporters:

America has to stand up for itself at some point and say these were the agreements we made and we expect you to live by them. People don?t understand that [imports] in renewable goods from China in the period 2001?2007 into the U.S. have increased by sevenfold.

We?ve been told we?ve lost manufacturing jobs in the past ands we can?t bring them back in the past. These are good high-tech jobs that can build a foundation in America and bring back some research and development.  

 ?It is time for the U.S. government to put an end to the unfair trade practices by countries like China that undermine the push for good jobs and clean energy investment,? AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.  

The AFL-CIO applauds the action by the United Steelworkers in filing a comprehensive clean energy trade case against the Chinese government. The predatory trade practices of the Chinese government have consistently violated the rules they promised to follow upon joining the World Trade Organization. Their actions have directly led to massive outsourcing and unrelenting trade deficits that have cost millions of American workers their jobs. 

Click here to read more or to download  a copy of the executive summary.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 09, 2010 (boomark / email).