For too long, debates over international trade have been dominated by corporate elites and economic ideologues, rather than rooted in the experiences of ordinary Americans.
The Trade Stories Project allows people who have been affected by policies and institutions like NAFTA and the WTO to share their views on a matter crucial to the global economy.
This includes displaced workers, farmers, small business owners and immigrants who have been typically excluded from the trade debate.
Bill Johnson
Salem, OR
Bill worked as a purchasing agent at InFocus, a manufacturer of digital projectors. When the company moved many of its blue-collar manufacturing positions overseas, the white-collar jobs shortly followed.
“You started to see, not only the laborers’ jobs go away, but the supervisors’ jobs. The jobs that supported manufacturing and production…
“I worked with a lot of the local manufacturing companies. One in Hillsboro, specifically Arrow Electronics, manufactured all our replacement lamps for the projectors. It was a huge account. When I got laid off, that account went away. I was the glue holding that relationship together.
“They had set up three separate production lines just to manufacture our lamps, and two project managers to head that. When I went away, the majority of their labor force had to get let go. So, again, the domino effect there.
“They gave me three weeks worth of notice, in which my position and basically the entire purchasing department would be moving to Singapore and they would begin purchasing from there…
“But in that two to three weeks, they said, ‘we’re going to have two people from Singapore come over here and you’re going to train them how to do your job.’ So they basically hired two people for what they were paying me, which I guess they felt would be more efficient.”