At least 18,600 jobs offshored by corporations signing pass-the-FTAs ad

As part of the corporate ad campaign to push congressional passage of the NAFTA-style trade deals with Korea, Colombia, and Panama, the heads of 32 corporations placed an "open letter" in yesterday's National Journal Daily (subscription only). Thing is, many of these very corporations are certified by the U.S. government as having offshored thousands of jobs under past U.S. trade agreements. That's right, the advertisement claiming that these Bush-era FTAs are needed to create U.S. jobs is sponsored by many chronic trade-agreement offshorers of, um, U.S. jobs.

Moreover, while these CEOs claimed that these deals would create U.S. jobs, the government’s own official studies predict an increase in the U.S. trade deficit from the deals. And, an independent economist projected the net loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs from the pacts. The historical record of similar trade agreements is that the United States has slower export growth to countries we have NAFTA-style deals with than with other countries.

In reality, it's likely that these corporations are licking their chops waiting for the offshoring opportunities that will come with another batch of unfair trade deals. Thanks to the Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) data on workers laid off due to imports and offshoring, we can see how these corporations have taken advantage of past unfair trade deals to ship jobs overseas. (And, given it provides a list of corporate offshorers, we can also see why the Republicans in Congress are keen to kill off this program that provides training and extended unemployment benefits to workers whose are certified as casualties of trade pacts, offshoring, and rising imports.)

We have a searchable form of the TAA database on our website. There you can see that some of these 32 corporations have shipped a combined 18,600 American jobs overseas since 2001. Consider that an example rather than a full accounting of the damage, as TAA is a narrow program that excludes many workers who may well have lost their jobs to trade pacts and imports but who do not meet the program's criteria. If a broader range of trade-related job loss is utilized, the Department of Labor reports over 35,000 workers who have lost their jobs at these companies due to trade since 2001.

Just to pick out a few examples, Whirlpool took advantage of NAFTA and shipped over 1,000 jobs at their Fort Smith, Arkansas facility to Mexico in 2008. Caterpillar, a major backer of the proposed trade pact with Colombia, laid off 338 workers at its Mapleton, Illinois facility when it shifted their work to Mexico. And it looks like Texas Instruments was getting a head-start on the offshoring possibilities offered by the Korea trade deal when it shipped 149 jobs at its Attleboro, Massachusetts facility to South Korea, Mexico, and China in 2005. It just so happens that electronics is going to be the hardest-hit sector in terms of the ballooning deficit from the Korea pact, so the remaining Texas Instruments workers in the United States should be wary.

This ad came the day of Obama's big jobs speech, and it turned out that he slipped in one definitely anti-jobs pitch, advocating for the passage of the Korea, Colombia, and Panama pacts. (Although this time, unlike in the State of the Union address, he did not make the dubious "70,000 jobs supported" claim.) If this isn't bad enough, Larry Summers, Obama's former director National Economic Council, last month argued that "We should not oppose offshoring or outsourcing."

After the jump is a list of the incidents of offshoring at the corporations that signed the letter pushing the three trade pacts:

(UPDATED 9/12/11)

Company	Laid Off Workers		City	State	Year
3M	32		Eagar	MN	2002
3M	124		Columbia	MO	2002
3M	42		Stillwater	MN	2004
3M	16		Fairmont	MN	2004
3M	50		Milwaukee	WI	2005
3M	46		Columbia	MO	2005
3M	40		Columbia	MO	2008
3M	11		Solon	OH	2008
3M	369		Southbridge	MA	2008
Applied Materials	742		Santa Clara	CA	2008
Applied Materials	481		Austin	TX	2008
Bayer	200		New Martinsville	WV	2008
Bayer	36		Berlin	CT	2008
Cargill	112		Decatur	AL	2004
Caterpillar	41		Leland	NC	2002
Caterpillar	130		Clayton	NC	2008
Caterpillar	338		Mapleton	IL	2008
Caterpillar	29		Dyersburg	TN	2009
Citi	9		New York	NY	2008
Citi	17		Hagerstown	MD	2008
Citi	7		Kingsport	TN	2008
Citi	32		Fort Lauderdale	FL	2008
Dow Chemical	18		Gales Ferry	CT	2008
Ford	1548		Wixom	MI	2006
Ford	326		Sterling Heights	MI	2008
GE	13		Bridgeville	PA	2001
GE	12		Bucyrus	OH	2001
GE	20		Euclid	OH	2002
GE	247		N. St. Paul	MN	2002
GE	19		Tell City	IN	2002
GE	170		Mebane	NC	2002
GE	140		Jonesboro	AR	2002
GE	1		Conover	NC	2002
GE	201		Shreveport	LA	2002
GE	41		Arden Hills	MN	2004
GE	8		Gladewater	TX	2004
GE	17		Jonesboro	AR	2005
GE	68		Tell City	IN	2004
GE	61		Ft. Wayne	IN	2005
GE	28		Ft. Wayne	IN	2005
GE	50		Hebron	OH	2005
GE	49		Willoughby	OH	2005
GE	22		Dothan	AL	2005
GE	61		Bloomington	IL	2005
GE	27		Youngstown	OH	2005
GE	74		Conneaut	OH	2006
GE	48		Bridgeport	CT	2006
GE	20		Ravenna	OH	2006
GE	8		Corona	CA	2006
GE	12		East Flat Rock	NC	2006
GE	12		East Flat Rock	NC	2006
GE	12		East Flat Rock	NC	2006
GE	12		East Flat Rock	NC	2006
GE	102		Cleveland	OH	2007
GE	59		Plainville	CT	2007
GE	40		Somerset	NJ	2007
GE	5		Youngstown	OH	2008
GE	80		Ravenna	OH	2008
GE	19		Barrington	IL	2008
GE	397		Milwaukee	WI	2008
GE	23		Easton	PA	2008
GE	43		Goldsboro	NC	2008
GE	101		Niles	OH	2010
GE	18		Euclid	OH	2009
Hewlett-Packard	9		Allentown	PA	2003
Hewlett-Packard	710		Omaha	NE	2003
Hewlett-Packard	176		Chino	CA	2004
Hewlett-Packard	176		Corvallis	OR	2004
Hewlett-Packard	12		Boise	ID	2004
Hewlett-Packard	9		Austin	TX	2005
Hewlett-Packard	120		Mahwah	NJ	2005
Hewlett-Packard	20		Boise	ID	2007
Hewlett-Packard	60		Corvallis	OR	2007
Hewlett-Packard	52		Vancouver	WA	2007
Hewlett-Packard	56		San Diego	CA	2007
Hewlett-Packard	58		Minnetonka	MN	2007
Hewlett-Packard	28		Dayton	OH	2007
Hewlett-Packard	93		Vancouver	WA	2007
Hewlett-Packard	11		San Diego	CA	2007
Hewlett-Packard	120		Fremont	CA	2008
Hewlett-Packard	50		Boise	ID	2008
Hewlett-Packard	65		Charlotte	NC	2008
Hewlett-Packard	86		Aguadilla	PR	2008
Hewlett-Packard	43		Carmel	IN	2008
Hewlett-Packard	1		Kansas City	KS	2008
Hewlett-Packard	1		Commerce Township	MI	2008
Hewlett-Packard	43		Marlborough	MA	2008
Hewlett-Packard	439		Boise	ID	2008
Hewlett-Packard	8		Fort Collins	CO	2008
Hewlett-Packard	8		Boise	ID	2008
Hewlett-Packard	4		Englewood	CO	2008
Hewlett-Packard	5		Saint Charles	MO	2008
Hewlett-Packard	27		Fort Collins	CO	2008
Hewlett-Packard	12		Montvale	NJ	2008
Hewlett-Packard	36		Detroit	MI	2008
Hewlett-Packard	13		W. Houston	TX	2008
Hewlett-Packard	820		Plano	TX	2008
Hewlett-Packard	6		Vandalia	OH	2008
Hewlett-Packard	89		Boise	ID	2008
Hewlett-Packard	37		Vancouver	WA	2008
Hewlett-Packard	128		Pontiac	MI	2008
Hewlett-Packard	3		Fort Collins	CO	2008
Hewlett-Packard	58		Houston	TX	2008
Hewlett-Packard	4		King Of Prussia	PA	2008
Hewlett-Packard	56		Cupertino	CA	2008
Hewlett-Packard	20		Marlborough	MA	2008
Hewlett-Packard	95		Fort Worth	TX	2009
Hewlett-Packard	46		Palo Alto	CA	2009
Hewlett-Packard	38		Omaha	NE	2009
IBM	10		San Jose	CA	2002
IBM	53		Rock Hill	SC	2008
IBM	9		El Segundo	CA	2008
IBM	8		Folsom	CA	2008
IBM	4		Endicott	NY	2008
IBM	40		Tulsa	OK	2009
IBM	6		Armonk	NY	2008
IBM	3		Chicago	IL	2008
IBM	142		Southbury	CT	2008
IBM	18		Newark	NJ	2008
IBM	29		Lexington	KY	2008
IBM	11		Golden Valley	MN	2008
IBM	126		Farmers Branch	TX	2008
IBM	10		Austin	TX	2008
IBM	3		Charleston	WV	2008
IBM	20		Armonk	NY	2009
IBM	13		Sterling Forest	NY	2009
McGraw-Hill	200		Monterey	CA	2005
Procter & Gamble	26		Green Bay	WI	2002
Procter & Gamble	30		Stamford	CT	2007
Stryker	567		Rutherford	NJ	2001
Texas Instruments	215		Attleboro	MA	2002
Texas Instruments	60		Tucson	AZ	2002
Texas Instruments	126		Attleboro	MA	2003
Texas Instruments	99		Tucson	AZ	2004
Texas Instruments	149		Attleboro	MA	2005
Texas Instruments	118		Dallas	TX	2006
Texas Instruments	86		Dallas	TX	2006
Wal-Mart	734		Lockbourne	OH	2008
Whirlpool	760		Fort Smith	AR	2005
Whirlpool	47		Cleveland	TN	2007
Whirlpool	917		Oxford	MS	2007
Whirlpool	1095		Fort Smith	AR	2008
Whirlpool	70		St. Jospeh	MI	2007
Whirlpool	68		Benton Harbor	MI	2007
Whirlpool	1300		Evansville	IN	2008
Xerox	131		Webster	NY	2002
Xerox	171		Yukon	OK	2007
Xerox	24		Lewisville	TX	2008