CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Why Congress Needs to Bring Back Trade Adjustment Assistance

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Al King and other United Steelworkers (USW) activists spent much of the past year piecing together support for about 600 union miners in Minnesota laid off by Cleveland-Cliffs.

He and leaders across the union collaborated to secure a 26-week extension of state unemployment benefits. King, the USW Local 6511 president, helped to search for training and part-time employment opportunities to give his coworkers options as the layoffs dragged on.

He also threw his support behind the possible development of a manufacturing plant on the Iron Range with the potential to generate 200 jobs—one more potential alternative—for miners waiting to return to the Hibbing Taconite and Minorca mines.

And while King would do this all again in a heartbeat to lift up fellow union members, it infuriates him that Congress killed a widely respected program four years ago that successfully delivered many of the very services he’s now trying to put into place.

He has every right to be angry. I’m livid, too, and so are hundreds of thousands of workers across numerous industries—farming, glass, mining, steel, and tires, to name a few—who got kicked in the gut when Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) ended for no reason in 2022.

The program’s demise ripped away a lifeline from workers who face job losses because of the adverse effects of global........

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