US House approves aid for workers hit by trade deals

WASHINGTON () — The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted to renew assistance for American workers hurt by liberalised trade, an important step in President Barack Obama’s drive for a massive Pacific Rim trade deal.

Without action by Congress, the worker aid programme would have expired on September 30, just as the Obama administration could be trying to wrap up a 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal encompassing 40 per cent of the world’s economy and ranging from Chile to Japan.

The Senate passed the legislation on Wednesday. With House passage, it now goes to Obama for signing into law.

By a vote of 286-138, the House approved a renewal of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programme, which has been in place for decades to ease the domestic impact of free trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico in 1993.

Democrats have long been fierce defenders of the programme that Republicans mostly oppose.

But on June 12, Democrats voted to defeat the worker aid programme. It was a ploy, which ultimately failed, to block so-called fast-track authority that allows Obama to more easily complete TPP without fear that Congress could amend the pact.

In debate on the worker aid bill on Thursday, Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter said, “The very fact of passing this bill is an admission of knowing we are going to lose jobs.”

The conservative Heritage Foundation, which is influential among congressional Republicans, has called the programme “ineffective and wasteful” and complained that its benefits are more generous than those received by unemployed people who do not lose their jobs as a result of trade deals.

In a December 2014 analysis, Heritage argued that the money spent on TAA “appears to do little to improve displaced workers’ job prospects”.

The White House, however, has said 2.2 million workers have benefited from the programme since 1974.

According to the US Department of Labour, thousands of those displaced workers were veterans who used the aid to earn education degrees or industry-recognised certifications. In 2013, 71 per cent of programme participants returned to work, the department has said.

Many of the workers who lost their jobs and participated in the trade assistance programme have come from the manufacturing sector, according to government figures.