According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, on October 7 the AFL-CIO, in conjunction with an affiliate group Working America, will launch a searchable online database of more than 400,000 employers that allegedly have outsourced jobs and/or violated workers’ rights.  As stated in the article, the goal of the outsourcing database is to “[s]how voters, particularly union-member households, the local impact of the nation’s trade laws in an effort to get them to cast ballots for union-backed candidates.” 

This move is being touted as the labor organization’s latest effort to drum up voter enthusiasm for the mid-term elections.  On September 28, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke out in favor of the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act, a bill that would provide employers with tax incentives to maintain jobs in the United States and eliminate tax advantages for outsourcing work.  That same day, the Senate defeated the motion to begin debate on the bill, effectively blocking it. 

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