Former Employees of Carhartt, Inc. v. Chao

**What Happened** Former employees of Carhartt, Inc. applied for special unemployment benefits called NAFTA Transitional Adjustment Assistance after losing their jobs when the company's McKenzie plant closed. These benefits are designed to help workers who lose jobs because companies move production to Mexico or Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The workers claimed their jobs were eliminated because Carhartt shifted production to Mexico. **What the Court Decided** The Court of International Trade sided with the Department of Labor, which had denied the workers' application for these special benefits. The court found that the Department of Labor had sufficient evidence to support its decision and that the former Carhartt employees could not prove their jobs were actually moved to Mexico. **Why This Matters for Workers** This case shows how difficult it can be to qualify for NAFTA trade adjustment benefits. Workers must provide clear evidence that their job losses were directly caused by production moving to Mexico or Canada, not just general plant closures or downsizing. Simply losing a job when a plant closes isn't enough – workers need to demonstrate a direct connection to international trade shifts to receive these enhanced unemployment benefits.