Recently, I took a look at a new tool called JobTracker, which tracks job losses due to outsourcing and other corporate abuses put together by Working America.

Basically, you input your zip code and the site's database churns out a list of corporations in your area that are outsourcing jobs, conducting mass firings, are on file with health and safety violations by OSHA, and are on the record as alleged violators of federal labor laws.

For example, take a look at this screen shot. It uses Google Maps to flag several thousands companies that are outsourcing or are in alleged violation of labor and safety and health laws within a 50 mile radius of our home office:

A recent press statement by the AFL-CIO, the sponsor of Working America, gave some additional background on how the data is collected:

Visitors to the Job Tracker site can search the database by company name, zip code and industry. Within seconds, detailed results are culled from a database that draws from sources including U.S. Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) records, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, Occupational Safety Health Administration records and more. The Job Tracker site also enables visitors to use Facebook and Twitter and email to report companies exporting jobs in their communities.

On the site, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka said:

We must demand that our leaders show that they stand with working families – fighting to create jobs, rejecting unfair trade deals and putting us on a path to make things in America again. For the first time, working people have one place to see the real impact of the failed policies of the past that gave corporations the ability to ship American jobs overseas. With this new data as a benchmark, working people will have the ability to separate the economic patriots from the corporate traitors at the ballot box.

Working America also published this report pointing to US trade policies that lie behind major economic changes and job losses.