Why bash stops process in background?

[Peter Volkov Alexandrovich]

Hello.

I need to run ssh in background just to forward ports. But anytime I put
it into background process state became stoped and this does not allow
me to send packets through forwarded ports. 'bg' command does not help.

How can I tell bash not to stop process? I've tried to trap signals, but
I can not trap STOP signal. What else can I do?

I'm using:
peter@camobap ~ $ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.00.16(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Thank you for your time,
Peter.

P.S. I'm not subscribed to the list, so please CC me.