Special Report on Trade
Mostly, the consequences of bad trade are described in numbers. These tell of hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, declining wages and life expectancy and rising suicides and drug addiction.
They’re shocking. And sad.
But they don’t tell the whole story. That can only be done by the workers who are cut down by bad trade deals, devastating trade policies and defective trade enforcement.
Here, for example, is what former Carrier worker Lakita Clark said about the day in 2016 that the officials at Carrier’s Indianapolis plant announced their plan to move furnace manufacturing to Mexico: “Everyone was obviously devastated because it was such a shock. There were lots of people crying.”
Maury King constructed furniture for Joerns Healthcare in Stevens Point, Wis., until a venture capital group moved the work to Mexico. After the shutdown announcement, King and a former plant owner worked with state and local officials to put together a package of benefits to try to persuade the venture capitalists to keep the work in America. But, King said, they didn’t listen. “We put more sweat into saving the place than they did. They didn’t make any effort. It was going to close no matter what we did.”
Each of these workers, and many more, wrote about their experiences after losing their jobs. Those accounts explain the real cost of bad trade.