Labor Voices: Bring back the jobs that fled overseas – The Detroit News

America’s labor market is sick. Some 45 million Americans — one in seven — are unemployed or underemployed. The same number is on food stamps. That isn’t a coincidence.

The only way to cure this sickness is with a shot of jobs. We can do that by bringing back the jobs that fled overseas.

We lost more manufacturing jobs in the past 10 years than during the entire Great Depression. More than 50,000 manufacturing facilities have closed. And it isn’t just manufacturing. Service jobs are going overseas as well — in aircraft maintenance, call centers, professional services, software engineering, administrative services and health care.

No wonder a recent poll showed only 14 percent of high school graduates believe they’ll have a more successful financial future than their parents. I was discouraged to read in a New York Times story a quote from an 18-year-old boy who said he was grateful he had a buddy at a Burger King who could help him get a job.

President Barack Obama has administered some needed medicine to our weak economy. He saved the domestic auto industry and car sales are booming. He invested in infrastructure, putting millions to work. He reformed the financial industry, which will help prevent the kind of economic meltdown we suffered through in 2008.

But it wasn’t enough to stem the hemorrhaging. In the past 10 years, U.S. multinationals cut their work forces by 2.9 million in this country and hired 2.4 million overseas. That trend shows no sign of stopping. If our economy is ever to recover, our tax, trade and public investment policies must support good jobs at home.

U.S. companies actually get tax incentives to ship jobs overseas. Congress should get rid of those incentives — and soon. Lawmakers should also end the system of tax deferral that lets American corporations keep profits in foreign countries.

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, has introduced a bill that would eliminate tax incentives to ship jobs overseas, and New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-Paterson, filed a companion bill in the House. It would end the tax break that lets companies deduct the expenses of moving jobs overseas.

It would also create a new tax credit for shutting down operations overseas and bringing jobs back to the U.S. In order to qualify for the credit, companies would have to reduce or eliminate a trade or business overseas and start up, expand or move the same business here.

The Senate is expected to take action on the bill, the Bring Jobs Home Act, during the second week of July.

There’s another thing Congress can do to create jobs. They can stop talking about cutting citizens’ earned benefits and start talking about the $1 trillion in untaxed U.S. corporate profits being held offshore. Allowing multinationals to hold these untaxed profits gives them an incentive to offshore jobs and boost stock values. Many of the profits come from offshore production of goods sold in the U.S.

Seven years ago, U.S. multinationals got Congress to provide a “tax holiday,” which let them repatriate these deferred profits at a 5 percent tax rate. That undermined companies which keep jobs here and pay their taxes at the U.S. corporate rate. No jobs were created and many corporations used the funds to buy back stock to boost their value. Now they want another tax holiday. Congress shouldn’t give it to them.

Congress also has an opportunity to create 2 million jobs without a significant cost to taxpayers. A bill to stop foreign governments from manipulating their currency has been around for years.

If the U.S. forced just one country — China — to stop undervaluing its currency, economists estimate 2 million jobs would be created.

Finally, there’s something the U.S. trade representative could do to cure our sick labor market. He should immediately end negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. It’s just another job-killing giveaway to multinationals.

These issues won’t capture as much media attention as the latest poll, the latest gaffe or what the candidates did or didn’t do in high school. But these are the issues that American working families really care about.

James P. Hoffa is president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.