[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 142 (Wednesday, September 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



[[Page H 8814]]


          NAFTA: STOP TAKING AMERICAN WORKERS TO THE CLEANERS

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, we would all have enough money to pay for 
Medicare if the jobs in our country paid high enough wages to cover the 
cost of benefits. But, my friends, yesterday the Commerce Department 
reported again that our Nation is suffering the worst trade performance 
in our Nation's history.
  In April through June of this year, our current account deficit, the 
broadest measure of trade performance, jumped to $43.6 billion more in 
the whole, the worst results in history.
  The key reasons cited for this worsening record are our growing trade 
debt with Mexico, and that translates into more lost jobs, more lost 
benefits in this country for our workers.
  So now in Florida we have 100 more packinghouses out of business, 
ground to the ground, and 14,000 tomato workers out of work. In 
Milwaukee, WI, we have 7,000 more people laid off from Briggs & 
Stratton, jobs moved to Mexico, and in Topeka, workers at the Celophane 
plant there just had their wages cut to $8 an hour from an $11-an-hour 
level before.
  Let us go back to the drawing boards, recast NAFTA and stop taking 
our workers to the cleaners in this country.

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