READING, Pa., April 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa on Wednesday said the Hershey plant move to Mexico shows how trade deals like NAFTA harm American workers.
About 260 workers will lose their jobs in a city that has already lost one-fourth of its good-paying manufacturing jobs since January 2001. Of those workers, 50 are Teamsters.
Hershey Foods Corp. will shut down its Reading plant, which makes York Peppermint Patties and 5th Avenue bars. Production will be moved to Monterrey, Mexico, by year end. The company has already shut down five plants and plans to cut 1,500 more U.S. jobs in the next three years.
"These so-called trade deals are killing American jobs," Hoffa said. "They aren't about trade, they're about helping companies move their factories to countries with cheaper labor.
"The last thing American workers need is a trade deal with Colombia, one of the most anti-union countries in the world," Hoffa said.
Pennsylvania has been especially hard hit by foreign trade. More than 44,000 jobs were lost due to NAFTA since it took effect in 1994. Another 78,000 Pennsylvania jobs were lost to China since 2001.
"Sen. Barack Obama's proposal to give tax breaks to companies that stay in America and treat their workers well is one reason he's the most qualified person to be president of the United States," Hoffa said.
Obama introduced the "Patriot Employers Act" in August, along with Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.
Hoffa was in Reading as part of a three-day tour through the state, meeting with Teamsters in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, Reading and Pittsburgh.
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million hard-working men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
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