(MILE MARKER 307, PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE) -- If you want to see the reality of free trade agreements, visit Reading Pennsylvania. Today we met a group of 50 or so Teamsters who make York Pepermint Patties.
They will all be out of work by the end of the year. Their jobs are being shipped to Mexico.
It was the third stop on the second day of Hoffa's Convoy for Change. Now we're at mile 307 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading to Pittsburgh for another group of work site visits and media meets tomorrow. You can view the locations on this Google map. Yesterday's report is available here.
You know, there's been a lot of debate on this site and others about the costs and benefits of agreements like NAFTA. But debates here are just words on a screen. Politicians like Hillary (who supported NAFTA before she was against it) hem and haw and make excuses -- again, more words. But people losing their jobs, that's real. As real as it gets.
Dale Wiler (right) has worked at the Peppermint Patty plant for nearly 30 years. He has a wife and two kids. His 17-year-old daughter is about to graduate high school and now he doesn't know if he'll be able to send her to college. He and the other workers will get a severence package, but it's got to feed the family until the 50-year-old father can find other work.
"They just herded us into a room like cattle and told us they were closing, that was it. No discussion," he said. "I feel like I gave them the best years I had and they could care less."
Wiler and fellow Teamster Bob Shiller (left) explained that this isn't about Hershey having to close the plant. It wasn't about strategic downsizing or poor production. It's about cheap labor in Monterrey.
Wiler runs one of the main production machines, and runs it at 129 percent of its production capacity. But he makes $24 an hour plus union benefits.
"They are going to pay those people down there $1.77 an hour. And they say if they can get them to operate my machine at 33 percent production they'll be happy. It's unskilled, untrained labor and they don't give a crap," he said.
"Here, they watch everything we put down the drain. But down there, they don't have environmental rules. You can dump whatever you want. No wonder they can make a bigger profit down there. They don't have any rules," he said.
When his machine is disassembled in August, Wiler will be gone. In all about 260 will be eliminated.
Some claim NAFTA and other trade agreements have created jobs. That certainly is not the case here. Reading has lost 25 plants and 3,000 jobs because of NAFTA and similar trade agreements. More than 44,000 lost jobs in the state can be tied directly to NAFTA.
When asked what opportunities are available to them, Shiller smirked, "Wal-Mart, I guess."
Hoffa tried to give the Teamsters some solace, telling them that Barack Obama has promised that he would re-open NAFTA and push for a bill that would give tax incentives to companies that kept jobs in the U.S. "It may be too late to help you," he told the crowd, "but at least we may be able to help other families in this country before it is too late.
"I talked to Barack Obama today and told him this is where he needs to be to talk about trade. I told him to come down here and see you. And he said he would try," Hoffa told the Teamsters.
New Penn and more personal tales of offshoring
Our first stop of the day was 0730 at NewPenn, a less-than-truckload regional carrier. Hoffa spoke to the members about our endorsement and the reasons they should vote in the Primary and then went off to shake hands and talk to the truckers individually. I sat down with a couple of guys and started asking some questions.
Jim Chaffy has been a Teamster for 25 years and like other union members, offshoring and trade are big issues for him. Like many in Pennsylvania, it's personal too. His wife used to work for the IRS as a data-entry operator. Her job was moved to India.
I was floored. Passports in Taiwan, tax returns in India, Air Force tankers in Europe, WTF? What's next? The only U.S. jobs left may soon be Congress people and Lobbyists. Granted, a contractor in the U.S. could peak at my personal information as easily as a contractor in India or China, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if the work was done by career government employees.
But then he shocked me again. "I've always been a Republican," he said. "But I think we need a change.
"I've got a son whose done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. I think three tours is enough, don't you?"
Yes.
Associated Wholesalers
In between NewPenn and the Hershey Plant, we stopped at a massive food warehouse, Associated Wholesalers. We were greeted by about 150 Teamsters who gathered in an empty bay. I did't take notes, or talk to too many workers because I was put on camera duty. It was a good reception and Hoffa signed several "Teamsters for Obama" signs and asked the members to place them in their windows.
We also met CNN there, so you may have seen the interview by now.
Here are some more photos:
A couple of our escorts, the Teamster Truck from Local 25 in Boston ...
... and the Ohio Conference of Teamsters
Hoffa talking to Teamsters at Associated Wholesalers
This UPS Freight driver came over from the yard next door to the UPS facility in Reading. It was a really cool encounter because he and the other drivers there recently organized and are covered under a national contract that was ratified last week. He came over to say thank you for not giving up on Overnite -- a company that fought the Teamsters for 50 years before being purchased by UPS. Monday was the first day the driver received overtime pay, thanks to his new Teamster contract.