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Bill seeks to track jobs moved offshore

Brown:?Would hold companies accountable

WARREN — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown took another step Monday at holding companies accountable for jobs they ship overseas.

Brown, D-Ohio, met Monday morning with members of United Steelworkers Local 1375 at their Warren union hall to announce his plan to reintroduce the Outsourcing Accountability Act. Brown said it would help identify businesses sending jobs to foreign countries by requiring publicly traded companies to publish reports detailing the number of employees per location, including by state and by country, and percentages of changes.

“We know GM, for instance, as they shut down … say they reallocate Lordstown, they have increased production in Mexico. They call that job growth. I call it moving jobs offshore,” Brown told Tribune Chronicle news partner WKBN Channel 27. “We want to know exactly what they’re doing so the public can have more say in it in the end.”

USW Local 1375 President Rich Sayers, who attended Monday’s gathering, said good-paying manufacturing jobs in Trumbull and Mahoning counties have been “decimated by unfair trade and importing cheaply made, foreign government-subsidized goods.”

“Unfair trade and outsourcing need to stop if there is to be a middle class,” Sayers said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission now requires publicly traded companies to disclose total employment numbers and anticipated changes; however, it does not require public disclosure on where employees are based, making it difficult to track when domestic jobs are eliminated or moved off shore.

“In order to recognize companies that hire American workers, we need more information on where workers are based,” Brown said. “It’s not enough to say you’re dedicated to employing American workers — this will hold companies to the promise to keep workers and business here at home.”

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