The Maine manufacturing base has eroded even further this week with Sensata Technologies’ announcement it is moving its Standish operation to the Dominican Republic.

Sensata is Standish’s largest private employer with about 200 employees. It produces sensors used in automobiles and consumer products. Previously, Sensata was known as Honeywell, First Technology and Sylvania.

As a result of the announcement, made a scant three weeks after Sensata’s purchase of the former Honeywell plant on Northeast Road, the 200 hard working, loyal employees are being laid off, and there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.

Who or what is to blame? That is the question many families are asking themselves this week. While it’s easy to point fingers at Sensata, is the company really to blame? Or is it the North American Free Trade Agreement?

NAFTA, and its philosophy of profit above everything else, has brought about the decline of the American manufacturing sector. NAFTA allows the “outsourcing” of good jobs to foreign countries, thereby stripmining the American working class – all with the government’s OK. Sadly, since NAFTA was signed in the early 1990s, announcements like the one heard last week in Standish have been heard frequently throughout small-town America. Can you say goodbye to your manufacturing job and hello to a service industry job?

NAFTA set in motion a new business model where trade tariffs were eliminated in hopes the American economy would grow exponentially. What seems to have happened is that investors have benefited, but manufacturing jobs have gone offshore.

Companies will take every advantage they can to make a profit. If the government lets them get away with moving to another country where labor is cheap, they’ll do it. They’d be stupid not to. And there’s nothing wrong with keeping operating budgets tight. Sensata certainly can’t be faulted for trying to make more money for their investors and ensure the future of the company. But is an offshore move right? What happened to a company’s loyalty to their workers? They seem to demand it of their employees. Why not reciprocate that loyalty?

It’s time for our government, both state and national, to wake up and do something about this job exodus.

Yes, local leaders responded immediately by trying to convince Sensata to stay, but it did little. Yes, our government will assist Sensata employees with retraining and welfare assistance if they need it. However, let’s not forget these efforts come on the backs of Maine taxpayers who can’t handle any further tax increases.

If NAFTA stays in place, it’s unlikely we’ll see any job growth in the manufacturing field. All the efforts of our local and state politicians will do little with the monster called NAFTA bearing down.

But, coping is something Mainers do well in wintertime, and cope we will. We need to look at how our state treats business and ask whether we can alter policies to entice business to choose Maine. How about making the whole state a Pine Tree Zone, where businesses could enjoy significant tax breaks. That would be a start.

NAFTA is a sort of unfunded federal mandate imposed on the states. State economies are buckling under this monster’s weight. Quickly, politicians need to remove this monster so the Sensatas of the world stay where they belong.