***www.WorkingAmerica.org/JobTracker***
AFL-CIO and Working America release first-of-its-kind, zip code searchable database
In the worst economic crisis in a generation, the AFL-CIO and Working America released a first-of-its-kind, zip code searchable database that illustrates how corporate outsourcing has hollowed out American towns and cities. The Job Tracker released by the AFL-CIO and its community affiliate Working America provides a new tool for people searching for information on the local impact of outsourcing. The dynamic interactive database lists information on more than 400,000 corporations and subsidiaries and uses data from dozens of public sources to allow visitors to find out which companies have exported jobs overseas, violated health and safety codes or engaged in discriminatory or other illegal practices.
On a conference call to release the database, speakers noted that experts and the public alike will now be able to easily search through a huge compilation of data on corporate outsourcing.
"Because of Job Tracker, corporations who have taken advantage of lax trade policies in America and abroad will no longer be able to hide behind the veils of bureaucracy," said Karen Nussbaum, Executive Director of Working America. "Every night on our neighborhood canvasses, we hear from people who want to know which companies are profiting off the loss of their jobs. Corporations have created a global race to the bottom and working people won't stand for it."
Visitors to the Job Tracker site can search the database by company name, zip code and industry. Within seconds, detailed results are culled from a database that draws from sources including U.S. Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) records, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, Occupational Safety Health Administration records and more. The Job Tracker site also enables visitors to use Facebook and Twitter and email to report companies exporting jobs in their communities.
Since 2000, the United States has lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and 850,000 information sector jobs, many of which have been shipped overseas. Faulty trade and tax policies continue to lead to outsourcing as corporate executives boast record-breaking profits and salaries.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka noted the impact of faulty trade and tax policies that make it even easier for corporations to outsource jobs. He pointed to the benefits of such a tool for working people as they rebuild an economy that works for all and assess elected leaders' records in the election.
"We must demand that our leaders show that they stand with working families -- fighting to create jobs, rejecting unfair trade deals and putting us on a path to make things in America again," said Trumka. "For the first time, working people have one place to see the real impact of the failed policies of the past that gave corporations the ability to ship American jobs overseas. With this new data as a benchmark, working people will have the ability to separate the economic patriots from the corporate traitors at the ballot box."
As part of Job Tracker, Working America is also releasing a "white paper" entitled OUTSOURCED: Sending Jobs Overseas: The Cost to America's Economy and Working Families, which details how trade policies have outsourced good jobs. http://www.workingamerica.org/upload/OutsourcingReport.pdf Working America will share the results with members of Congress and the economic community as a new analysis on what policies must be passed to turn our economy around.
Working America, the community affiliate of the 12 million member AFL-CIO, represents workers without a union at work to mobilize around economic issues like health care and good jobs.
