Ginseng is a major export from Wisconsin, particularly to China. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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There is a growing chorus of concern about the passage of a new trade deal that threatens to ship Wisconsin jobs overseas.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a NAFTA-style trade deal that would lead to the outsourcing of good, family-supporting jobs in Wisconsin by creating an uneven playing field for American workers. The TPP doesn't give Wisconsin workers a fighting chance. It was created by and for corporations and gives incentives for companies to lower wages and ship our jobs to foreign countries in a never-ending race to the bottom in terms of worker rights, wages and working conditions.

Let's be clear: The labor movement is not opposed to trade agreements. We understand global trade is a reality in today's economy and that 95% of the world's consumers live outside the United States. What we are opposed to is bad trade agreements that lack enforceable labor standards, allow countries to manipulate their currencies and leave American workers without jobs.

The TPP is the latest example of a failed approach to trade, starting with NAFTA, which drives down wages, shutters factories across our great nation and creates special rights for corporations. Passage of the TPP equals lost jobs and lower wages for working people. It means more communities left behind as factories and plants close up shop. This is why the labor movement will continue to speak out to protect good American jobs and continue to work to defeat this bad trade deal.

We've been hearing the same song and dance — that trade deals will make our economy stronger — since 1992. The reality is, it hasn't panned out. We aren't better off. The opposite is true. Workers have fallen further and further behind in real wages. Millions of jobs have fled offshore.

In the United States, more than 60,000 factories closed in just 10 years. Five million jobs were lost as outsourcing became the go-to strategy for CEOs who wanted to fatten their own paycheck by moving jobs to China, Vietnam, Mexico, India, Colombia, South Korea, the list goes on. According to the Alliance for American Manufacturing, Wisconsin alone lost 130,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. That's more than the entire population of Green Bay.

We've seen it again and again in Wisconsin. Plant closures that disrupt lives, scatter families, empty schools and bankrupt communities. As good jobs flee our state, wages are depressed across the board and our middle class shrivels up. Families without a paycheck struggle to make ends meet. Free trade deals mean foreclosures and eviction rates tick up as once-thriving communities wither to shadows of their former selves. Time and time again, free trade agreements rig America's economic rules by rewarding domestic manufacturers who choose to put profits over patriotism by shipping jobs overseas and decimating communities. It's time to say enough is enough.

It's not trade that's the problem, it's unfair trade rules that pad profits at the expense of working people. For example, the TPP lowers the requirements for "rules of origin." That's the law that says how much of a product has to come from a given country to say it was made there. Under NAFTA, the requirement was 62.5%. The TPP lowers the requirement to 45%. That means a product that is 55% foreign-made could be labeled "Made in the U.S.A." Does that seem fair?

A growing majority of Americans are against bad trade deals such as the TPP that exacerbate income inequality and bring our factory floors to a screeching halt.

Wisconsin deserves fair and balanced trade deals that protect the rights of workers. Our trade agreements should advance an economy that creates good jobs in Wisconsin, and enables hardworking Wisconsinites to get ahead.

It's time to make trade work for working Wisconsinites and not just the top 1%. We call on all elected leaders to oppose the TPP to protect Wisconsin jobs. Politicians such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who have supported free trade in the past and now refuse to take a clear stance on the TPP, should make their position crystal clear before citizens cast their votes in November.

Let's export Wisconsin products, not Wisconsin jobs.

Phil Neuenfeldt is president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO.