http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080302/NEWS09/803020333Article published Sunday, March 2, 2008
ELECTION 2008
The loss of jobs from Ohio's factory towns and cities - 206,400 since 1994 - has put the state's economy and a struggling middle class at the center of the presidential campaign.
The flash point of the debate is NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement that was enacted in 1993.
But that's not all that has knocked the wind out of Ohio's economic sails.
Critics from the management point of view say Ohio's high labor costs and pension and health-care obligations have gone through a market correction, and the state is remaking itself leaner and nimbler - thanks to international trade agreements.
Organized labor says Ohioans suffered unnecessarily as a result of international trade agreements that have encouraged, or forced, U.S. manufacturers to set up factories or to do business with factories in countries with cheap labor and nonexistent environmental rules.
FULL story at link.