LIST 45

Top 100 Corporations Laying off US Workers Due to NAFTA

 

When the North American Free Trade Agreement was passed, we were assured that it would create at least 200,000 jobs in the US. Showing that politicians live in a Bizzaro world where everything is reversed, that's approximately the number of jobs the US lost due to NAFTA, either because companies move their facilities to Mexico or Canada, or because cheaper imports from those countries have forced the closing of US facilities.

Workers who lose their jobs because of NAFTA are eligible to receive special benefits. Toward the end of 2003, the famously non-partisan Congressional Research Service tallied the number of workers that US companies signed up for these benefits from the implementation of NAFTA (on the first day of 1994) to September 24, 2002.

The list below represents the 100 companies giving the boot to the most workers. The total comes to 201,414, and would be even higher if companies beyond the top 100 were included. In the ranked list below, the number of workers follows the name of each corporation.

1. Vanity Fair or VF 16,095

2. Levi Strauss and Co. 15,676

3. Burlington House & Industries total: 9,679

4. Motorola, Inc. 7,347

5. Tyco 5,751

6. General Electric total: 5,674

7. Fruit of the Loom Texas - 5,352

8. Russell Corporation 3,630

9. Lucent Technologies 3,416

10. Honeywell, Inc. 2,754

11. Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation 2,600

12. Lexington Fabrics 2,461

13. Anchor Glass Corporation 2,419

14. Brown Group 2,400

15. Louisiana Pacific 2,397

16. Dana Corporation 2,306

17. Emerson Electronic Connector Components 2,246

18. Stroh Brewery Company 2,222

19. Trinity Industries 2,203

20. Sarah Lee 2,124

21. Viasystems Technologies 2,100

22. Eaton Corporation 2,052

23. TRW/Auto Electronics Group of North America 2,050

24. Thomas and Betts Corporation 1,987

25. Nokia 1,980

26. Oxford Industries 1,960

27. Solectron Corporation 1,932

28. United Technologies Corporation 1,899

29. Allied Signal, Inc. 1,883

30. Henry I. Siegel 1,857

31. Autoliv ASP 1,720

32. Haggar Clothing Co. 1,717

33. Hewlett Packard 1,683

34. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company 1,671

35. AMP, Inc. 1,654

36. Thomaston Mills 1,649

37. Kemet Electronics 1,631

38. Freightliner, LLC 1,595

39. Lockheed Martin 1,584

40. Tultex Corporation 1,547

41. Hasbro Manufacturing Services 1,531

42. Exide Technologies 1,470

43. PL Industries and Subsidiary 1,446

44. FCI USA, Inc. 1,436

45. Kimberly Clark Corporation 1,415

46. Woodward Governor Company 1,390

47. Ithaca Industries 1,359

48. Regency Packing Company 1,334

49. Al Tech Specialty Steel Corporation 1,330

50. Master Lock 1,324

51. Square D Corporation Group Schneider - 1,322

52. Newell Manufacturing 1,308

53. Aalfs Manufacturing 1,276

54. Mattel Operations 1,259

55. Borg-Warner Automotive Diversified Trans 1,259

56. Sola Optical USA, Inc. 1,252

57. Federal Mogul Wiper Products 1,201

58. Household Products 1,200

59. Plaid Clothing Group 1,180

60. L.G. Philips Display 1,163

61. Magnetek 1,160

62. John Deere Consumer 1,150

63. Copper Range Co. 1,133

64. Sunbeam 1,130

65. Sony 1,126

66. Scientific Atlanta 1,121

67. Lear Corporation 1,120

68. Champion Products 1,116

69. KLH Industries 1,100

70. SMTC Manufacturing Corporation of Wisconsin 1,085

71. Zenith Electronics Corporation 1,057

72. Crown Pacific Limited Partnership 1,050

73. Flexel, Inc. 1,050

74. Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex, Inc. 1,046

75. Johnson Controls, Inc. 1,036

76. Gulford Mills 1,032

77. United States Leather 1,011

78. Monon Corporation 1,000

79. Ametek total: 1,000

80. Singer Furniture 1,000

81. J.R. Simplot Company 995

82. Flextronics International 991

83. Greenwood Mills 991

84. Georgia Pacific West 966

85. Celestica Corporation 965

86. Seton Company 960

87. Kraft Foods North America 955

88. Bassett Furniture Industries 954

89. Grove US, LLC 950

90. C-Cor.Net 930

91. Jeanerette Mills 926

92. Boise Cascade Corporation 918

93. Strick Corporation 912

94. Xerox 893

95. A.O. Smith Electrical Products 878

96. Smith Corona Corporation 874

97. Siemens 874

98. Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America 870

99. The Budd Company 868

100. Cross Creek Apparel 863

Worker Safety Priorities, part 2

From 1982 to 2002, number of governmental investigations of workers' deaths: 1,798

Number of those cases referred to federal or state prosecutors: 196

Number of convictions: 81

Number of convictions resulting in jail time: 16