Democrat Candidate for WI Governor has Some 'Splaining' to do

Mary Burke, a former executive at her father's bicycle company in Waterloo WI has some explaining to do as to why Trek Bicycles has outsourced so many jobs to China. Trek sells about 1.5M units a year but domestic production has slipped to a mere 10,000.

The nascent political candidate, who is the leading prospect for the Democrat gubernatorial nomination in Wisconsin, was put on her heels by a US Labor Dept ruling that some former workers at Trek Bicycles were eligible for special federal aid via the Trade Adjustment Assistance program because of job loss due to foreign trade.

"The increased reliance on imports contributed importantly to the worker group separations and sales/production declines at Trek Bicycle Corporation." In English, the workers layoffs were due to production being moved to China.

From a financial standpoint, Mary Burke won't want for funds. Still one of the owners at Trek, she'll not only have the backing of the wealthy Burke family, but also Planned Parenthood and Emily's list. However the unions and labor are showing some reticent about supporting Burke because Trek has not only outsourced jobs to China but is also is non-union.

"That's a tough pill to swallow for Democrats that spent last year bashing Romney for sending jobs to China," said a liberal activist. "Totally ridiculous — I'm ashamed to have Burke as our only candidate."

http://www.jsonline.com/news/some-democrats-dismayed-with-burke-after-trek-ruling-b99144457z1-232399351.html

Ooops. Meant to put this in National Politics. Hope the world doesn't end.