Sometime soon, the International Trade Commission is expected to issue a final ruling on an unfair trade practices complaint brought by several U.S. paper manufacturers against China and Indonesia. In a preliminary ruling last month, the U.S. Commerce Department found that Chinese and Indonesian paper exporters had received unfair trade subsidies which undercut the U.S. market. Maine millworkers say several thousand jobs are at stake. And today they joined state and local leaders in asking Congress and the federal government to level the playing field.

Ever since NewPage Corporation, Sappi Fine Paper, Appleton Coated and the United Steelworkers Union accused China and Indonesia of unfair trade practices, mill workers have been taking their case to the streets. In recent months they've convinced more than 20 boards of selectmen to draft resolutions of support. They also enlisted the help of the Maine Legislature and written hundreds of letters to Congress and the ITC.

At the NewPage Mill in Rumford, some workers call themselves the "dumping angels," and as they explained at a news conference, their message is simple: They just want to work.

"As long as there are excessive, illegal imports, paper dumped on our markets, we will not have job security here in this area or anyplace in Maine," says Ron Hemmingway of Dixfield, who is employed at the NewPage Mill, where he's worked for more than 30 years. "Loggers, the chemical suppliers, chip plants and other vendors who supply our mill also lose when we're down -- the fallout is huge."

Last year was a difficult one for NewPage, which saw production curtailments and about a hundred short and longterm layoffs. NewPage spokeswoman Janet Hall says underutilization in the paper industry was to blame.

Hall says most of the workers have since been brought back. But she's worried that the mill and its 900 employees are vulnerable unless the ITC makes a favorable ruling on the paper companies' petitions. "I would like to see a level playing field for these petitions, and have free, non-subsidized trade so that this mill and this industry can remain here for the generations to come."

According to the Alliance for American Manufacturing and members of Maine's congressional delegation, subsidies on coated paper imports from China and Indonesia grew by about 40 percent in the first six months of 2009, while domestic shipments during the same period dropped by nearly 40 percent.

The Obama Administration has so far refrained from designating China as a so-called "currency manipulator" for deliberately keeping their currency low and artificially boosting the price of U.S. exports on the world market.

Some speculate that reluctance to push the Chinese comes from the interest the U.S. has in getting Chinese cooperation on sanctioning Iran and other matters. "It's very hard to get tough on China if they're also buying up United States' debt," says Maine Congressman Mike Michaud, a former papermaker himself, who is the co-sponsor of the Trade Act, a bill that would require a review of existing trade pacts and boost Congress' role in drafting aspects of future trade deals.

More than 100 House Democrats and Republicans have signed onto the bill, including Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. And Michaud is hopeful that momentum is building. "So the administration knows that Congress is not going to sit back, and if the administration fails to act appropriately than Congress will take further action."

Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have written letters to the Treasury Department asking that China be listed as a currency manipulator. They say a trade imbalance with China has cost the nation more than two million jobs over the past decade.

And the effect is being felt in small mill towns with shuttered factories and growing unemployment lines. Carlo Puiia is the town manager of Rumford, where he says unemployment is in the high teens. "The younger generation has not been able to stay because we don't have the replacement jobs that we used to have so a lot of people, it's not attractive to stay anymore."

But those who do have jobs say they want to keep working, they want to keep their towns vibrant and they're asking for the government's help.