Many of us have been following closely the issues of Fast Track (or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA)), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), all being promoted by the administration with a lot of complaints and rancor here at DailyKos.
I don't want to talk about those issues here. Apologies for piling on with the acronyms, but I would like to bring up an issue that often gets less attention in these discussions: Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).
TAA dates to the Trade Act of 1974, and creates a process whereby workers who believe that they have lost their jobs due to import competition can petition for assistance to adjust, which can take the form of retraining and moving expenses as well as assistance in finding a new job. The program has been re-authorized in various forms over the years. When NAFTA was passed, a special TAA program was created to assist workers dislocated by competition from Mexico.
The current TAA bill expires in September. It really, really needs to be reauthorized. It has been bargained over as part of the package with TPA, but the point I want to make is that regardless of your views on TPA/TPP/TTIP, and especially if you are concerned about the effects of TPP/TTIP and are concerned that they may pass, we need TAA to be reauthorized. It is the least we can do to help cushion the effect on workers hit by globalization.
Note that this TAA bill seems to be a lot better than earlier versions. It doubles what states are able to spend on retraining programs, explicitly allows for help for workers displaced by imports from countries with which we have no free-trade agreement (such as India and China -- not a small consideration), and for the first time allows for help to service workers. This is important: Service workers can be indirectly affected by the impact of trade on a local economy. (See this link for some info on the current bill.) If the bill passes, the program survives for six years, which is a good long stretch.
Everyone agrees that TAA is only a partial cushion, inadequate to the need, but it is far better than nothing, and the least our government can do for workers hit by import competition is to pass it. There's a vote on this tomorrow (Tuesday) in the House. I've called my House Rep -- I'll call my senators next. I'd suggest you do the same.