June 30 marks three years since Congress allowed the federal program, which aids U.S. workers impacted by unfair trade, to expire.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) led a host of Democratic and Independent co-sponsors in introducing legislation on June 18 to reauthorize Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a key federal program established in 1974 that aids workers who have lost their jobs or seen their pay cut as a direct result of increased imports or offshoring. Congress allowed the program to expire in 2022, ripping a safety net out from underneath thousands of factory workers.
Within the Department of Labor program, TAA participants are provided a wide range of services, including skills training, job relocation allowances, and additional weeks of income. Since its inception, more than 5 million workers have benefitted. However, with TAA’s expiration nearly three years ago, eligible workers who have suffered the ravages of unfair trade cannot apply to participate in the program. According to Brown’s office, more than 118,000 workers, including 4,200 in Ohio, are eligible for TAA but cannot access its services.
“Our trade policy has failed workers over and over – assisting workers who lose their jobs because of corporate outsourcing and China’s cheating is the bare minimum we owe these Ohioans,” Brown said. “Thousands of workers have had their lives upended through no fault of their own since Trade Adjustment Assistance expired. We can’t leave these workers on their own – Congress needs to reinstate Trade Adjustment Assistance now.”
United Steelworkers (USW) International President David McCall praised the bill, calling it “critical to providing much-needed support to workers who have been adversely affected by unfair trade, including the more than 5,000 USW members who have been unable to access TAA because Congress has not reauthorized the program since it expired on June 30, 2022.”
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, United Auto Workers, and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations also endorsed Brown’s legislation.
Because of a glut of cheap imports, courtesy of massive Chinese industrial overcapacity, critical U.S. industries such as steel, auto and solar are at risk of layoffs, making TAA more important than ever. U.S. trade policy has nearly always offered too little, too late in terms of protection for American workers. The least the federal government can do is offer a Band-Aid for the gaping wound left in globalization’s aftermath.
Back in 2022, AAM’s own Jeff Bonior profiled several workers who were able to secure new jobs through TAA, including Kim Brewer, who was thrown adrift into the job market in 1996 when his 20-year career at a Detroit-area steel mill was eliminated. Skills training yielded new employment for Brewer as an aircraft mechanic — a job he has held for decades since. For him and the other workers featured in Bonior’s report, leaving today’s workers without TAA is unimaginable:
“There is no doubt you can learn a new skill and tremendously increase your income through this program,” Brewer said. “I can’t believe it is no longer available. We need more job training help like this. It is honest work for those that want to work and put the time in. This is not a free handout. It increases the power of the middle class and is good for this country.”
If passed, the TAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 would reauthorize the 2015-2021 version of TAA and support workers, farmers, and firms through December 2030.