(The AFL-CIO circulated the following news release on April 14.)
WASHINGTON — A new television advertising campaign launched today by the AFL-CIO continues the efforts of the working people’s organization to highlight the nation’s jobs crisis and mobilize support for a change in policies to save American jobs. The ads, airing in nine states for one week, feature a laid-off software engineer from the state of Washington who was forced to train her own Indian replacement in order to receive severance pay.
“Now corporations are sending high tech jobs overseas,” says an announcer in the ad, pointing to an escalation in the export of information industry jobs on the heels of massive manufacturing job loss. “Yet President Bush stands with his corporate backers, defending tax breaks that actually reward corporations for shipping American jobs to other countries.”
President Bush’s 2004 budget included new tax breaks for companies that have shifted production overseas. In addition, the Bush Administration has announced its support for Senate bill 1637, which includes $37 billion in foreign tax breaks. Title II of S. 1637 contains changes that would allow U.S. companies to realize large tax savings when they shift income or operations to low tax jurisdictions abroad.
“Training my replacement felt like basically being handed a shovel and told to dig your own grave,” says engineer Myra Bronstein in the new ad. The ads are the latest installment in a television campaign the AFL-CIO began on April 1. Bronstein was one of three workers featured in the campaign’s first ad.
“America’s workers are angry that President Bush has propped the door open for these high-tech companies to send workers’ jobs overseas,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “It’s not rocket science. We should stop giving companies an incentive to send family-supporting jobs overseas.”
The advertising campaign follows an eight-day, 18-city “Show Us the Jobs” tour (www.showusthejobs.com) sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, which featured 51 unemployed and underemployed workers testifying about how the jobs crisis has affected them, their families and communities. Bronstein represented Washington State on the tour.
The ad includes the “Show Us the Jobs” website address, www.showusthejobs.com, where viewers can find economic facts, personal stories about the jobs crisis and various ways to take action, including contacting President Bush and contacting their Senators to oppose tax breaks that encourage the export of American jobs.
The ads are part of the AFL-CIO’s continuing outreach program to inform and mobilize America’s working families to exercise their collective clout to influence government policy around issues central to their lives and future. The AFL-CIO is the umbrella organization for America’s unions and represents 13 million working men and women.