Barry Gardiner Quotes

I don't think we should sell out the American worker. That's why I am opposed to NAFTA.

The data on worker displacement after NAFTA reads like a funeral program for the middle class.

We didn't start this war - the right wing did. We're tired of seeing good-paying jobs shipped overseas. This fight is about the economy, it's about jobs and it's about rebuilding America.

What's going on in this country? Unions stand against those trends. We've got to somehow insulate the robust American economy from this global economy that seems to want to devour our standard of living.

Since NAFTA was put in place, Mexico has lost 1.9 million jobs and most Mexicans' real wages have fallen.

Free trade is killing the labor movement.

The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns.

I fear that CAFTA will accelerate the demise of these domestic textile jobs.

Jobs are being outsourced at such an alarming rate My neighbor has no job at all with no prospects to date. So perhaps I should be thankful for the little that I make If I dare to ask for a living wage My job would be at stake.

I am all in favor of growing the American economy and engaging in trade with the world, but not at the expense of American workers. The North American Free Trade Agreement is a perfect example of this. Ask the textile workers of North Carolina how NAFTA worked out for them - if you can find any.

Over the years, America had become more like Wal-Mart. It had gotten cheap. Prices were lower, and wages were lower. There were fewer union factory jobs and more part-time jobs as greeters.

I opposed NAFTA in 1993 and '94.

In Illinois, we've seen job losses from agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA. Those agreements didn't help American workers - and they haven't brought improvements to the lives of workers in other countries, either.

President Trump was determined to replace NAFTA from the day he took office. It reflected the old way of trade deals in which our partners shirked labor protections while American companies shipped operations and jobs to cheaper foreign locations. Our factories shuttered, our manufacturing shrank, and we grew more dependent on foreign suppliers.

Market-led globalization is leading to a race to the bottom, where efficiency and profit matter more than a fair share for working people.

Would you rather have cheap, subsidized - illegally subsidized - goods dumped into the Wal-Mart and not have a job and not have your wages go up in 15 years, or would you like to pay a little bit more - not much - a little bit more, have a job, and have your wages going up? I think the American people are going to make that choice.

Unfortunately, the United States has entered into several free trade agreements that do not sufficiently protect and support our manufacturing industries and the millions of American workers they employ.

Manufacturing and other unskilled professions that were union jobs, that allowed people to live a middle-class life, are disappearing both because unions are disappearing and because of the global nature of the economy.

I'm not for the sort of trade deals that hollow out our standards while they hollow out our middle class and middle class wages.

Politicians said that with our cheap labour, we could be competitive in the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were the most uncompetitive country with that cheap labour.

We talk about Hollywood being pro-labor, yet about 70% of our industry has been farmed out to Canada, meaning we are losing jobs like crazy. Where's organized labor asking how we can allow such a thing to happen?

Our great history has been that people came to Michigan because you didn't have to have a college degree to get a good-paying job. Consequently, we have got a larger number of our population that right now are facing outsourcing, et cetera, without higher or advanced degrees.

There are people walking around the streets of Kansas City who are unemployed, while one of our largest employers is not only sending jobs aboard, but then turning around and making a statement about preserving jobs.

I fundamentally believe that politics is counterintuitive. The left think they're helping working people by providing more rights, but all that actually happens is you create poverty and despair, because jobs go to your competitors who have fewer rights for workers.

I think you'll see if you look at 'Up', we've focused a lot on labor (and the forces trying to keep labor down) and have featured everything from Wal Mart workers, to on-the-ground organizers, to union presidents to restaurant workers sitting at the table sharing their experience and expertise.