GALESBURG - Congressman Phil Hare, D-Rock Island, chose the setting for his news conference about jobs Monday carefully. Hare outlined his position on free trade in the empty parking lot of the former Maytag refrigerator factory.

In 2004, Maytag put 1,600 people out of work when it moved the jobs to Reynosa, Mexico. As many as 2,400 people worked at the plant shortly before it closed.

The North American Free Trade Agreement has been blamed by many for the loss of those jobs. Hare said he is not against global trade but only if some changes are made.

"My purpose here today is to say I'm not going to support a single trade agreement that will outsource one job," Hare said. "I want to trade with every country on this planet. ... All I want is to open up the market."

Hare said trade agreements with Colombia, Peru and South Korea are likely to come before the Congress when it returns to Washington, D.C. He pointed out South Korea shipped 700,000 automobiles to the U.S. last year, while "we shipped 17,000 or less."

He said 2,000 labor union officials have been assassinated in Colombia.

"We can get a trade agreement done, but sometimes the devil's in the details in these trade agreements," Hare said. "It's unimaginable we have this many people losing jobs under free trade."

He added he wants farmers to be able to export what they produce.

Hare also talked about "fast-track" authorization, which allows the president to act on some agreements without first consulting with Congress.

"I want to have a say," Hare said, "and I want to know what effect these agreements are going to have. ... If we're going to pass fast-track legislation - and I don't know if we are - I want to see the details."

Hare's stop in Galesburg was part of a five-day swing through the 17th District, which will include four events in Galesburg and one in Monmouth.

Dave Bevard, who was the union president at Maytag when it closed, also spoke Monday. Bevard testified March 26, at Hare's invitation, before the House Committee on Education and Labor.

"One thing I heard over and over again, they get people from think tanks to testify, but they very rarely get the everyday man on the street," Bevard said Monday.

Bevard said he told the committee that, on average, the jobs the workers get after finishing their retraining, average 16-20 percent less pay than what they made at Maytag.

Hare said he felt it helped the committee to have a human face put on the problem of people losing jobs and improvements needed in the retraining programs. He said he rode with the committee's ranking Republican before a vote and the congressman told him "'I had no idea the people like Dave Bevard had to go through that.' "

Hare said other things that need to be corrected include a provision in which a person's unemployment begins before their schooling, leaving them with no unemployment when they near the end of their training because the unemployment has expired.

"We have to have fields people can get jobs in," Hare said. "It doesn't do any good to spend money to retrain people in fields where there are no jobs."

Hare also recommended people be trained in a couple of fields, in case one does not pan out. He also said that while he knows hi-tech jobs are important, manufacturing is still vital. He asked why no TVs are made in the country. He said steel companies could still be successful if other countries were not allowed to dump their products in the U.S.

"The issue is never quality, it's whether you can compete," Hare said. "Give us the opportunity to compete fairly and then see what happens."