Labor & Employment Law

Gerard Named to Trade Advisory Panel

By James Parks

President Obama last week appointed United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard to his Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. You only have to read what Gerard has written and said about trade to know this is a good appointment for working people.

In recent days, Gerard, who chairs the AFL-CIO Public Policy Committee, has taken on the Chinese government and its deliberate currency manipulation to maintain an unfair advantage over its trading partners, especially the United States.

China?s rapid economic growth has ended poverty for millions of its workers. Here in the United States, however, China?s flouting of international trade law is destroying the lives of millions of workers. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 2.4 million American jobs have been lost or displaced since 2001 as a result of the trade deficit with China. American workers celebrate their Chinese counterparts? improved quality of life, but they condemn the government of China for accomplishing that with beggar-thy-neighbor trade practices.

You can read the entire column, ?China?s Currency Manipulation: Flipping Off America,? here.  

The trade policy advisory committee is part of a private-sector advisory system established by Congress in 1974 to ensure that U.S. trade policy and trade negotiating objectives adequately reflect U.S. commercial and economic interests.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 20, 2010 (boomark / email).