Good Morning. I am Bob Baugh, the Executive Director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council. The council is comprised of the leading manufacturing unions in the U.S.: Steelworkers, Autoworkers, Machinists, Communication Workers and Electrical  Workers, Boilermakers and more.

I am also a proud board member of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a national coalition of farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and labor. We are the people who make and grow things in this economy.

Today we are here because the Captains of Wall Street have become the Captains of the Titanic.  The financial credit crisis gripping our nation is only a symptom of the damage done.

Their greed and unregulated free market ideology have also driven our trade policy. The $700 billion bailout Congress will be voting on is today pales in comparison to the $800 billion trade deficit we are running annually.

The working families of our country are paying the price.

For the past decade our nation, at the economic direction of Wall Street and transnational corporations, has been bleeding away its manufacturing vitality and capability.

We have lost nearly 4 million manufacturing jobs and 35,000 manufacturing facilities have closed. These losses have a direct relationship to the nation’s wage stagnation and rising number of citizens without health insurance.

Our trade deficits have soared while our jobs have been offshored. Today, China accounts for 55% of our manufacturing trade deficit. 

The loss of these skilled workers, engineers, designers and research and development centers means that the next best idea, the next innovation, the next investment will be made in someone else’s economy not the U.S. 

Our nation is in trouble. Like the Titanic, the country has been rudderless, directionless without a clear national interest or strategy.

All our competitors have a national economic strategy with manufacturing at the center. We do not. They have trade and tax policies that support those interests. We do not. In fact, our trade and tax policies do the opposite; they undermine domestic manufacturing.

We are not here to seek a lifeboat. We want a whole new ship.  It is time for a change. It is time for smart trade and fair trade.

It is time the interest of working families, their communities, workplaces and our domestic manufacturing base are clearly identified as our national interest.   

The statement we have signed on to and are here in support of today says it all. We expect candidates for President and Congress to speak out on these issues.

America’s unions stand ready to fix America’s economy.