Bill would identify companies moving jobs overseas

Staff report

WARREN

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown wants publicly traded companies to provide more information each year about where employees are located to help identify which ones are moving jobs out of the country.

“In order to recognize companies that hire Amnerican workers, we need more information on where workers are based,” he said. “It’s not enough to say you’re dedicated to employing American workers.”

Brown spoke at the United Steel Workers union hall on North Park Avenue, telling union officials that last week he re-introduced legislation called the Outsourcing Accountability Act that would require companies to report the locations of their workers.

Currently companies only have to report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission how many employees they have.

Brown said identifying the location of workers “helps the union in a union plant in negotiations. It helps the community figure out what to do, and it shines a spotlight on a company that might just behave a little better if the public knew where their jobs were moved to.”

He said it’s relevent to the discussion of the jobs lost at GM Lordstown.

“They laid off these 4,500. They say 1,500, but it’s three shifts and they have expanded production in Mexico, so particularly when it’s a brand like GM, they care about their publicity. A supplier may not care about the publicity so much from it.”

Rich Sayers, president of United Steel Workers Local 1375, also spoke, saying the Youngstown-Warren area has been devastated by years of outsourcing, unfair trade and foreign government subsidies, cheap products and materials.

“Without good paying manufacturing jobs, there is no middle class, and with no middle class, there is no hope for the American Dream,” Sayers said.