Once again dont let facts get in your way!
Pillowtex closes down
The Associated Press
KANNAPOLIS, N.C. -- Textile giant Pillowtex, which has been scrambling to find a buyer as a big debt repayment deadline approached, said Wednesday it plans to shutter its 16 plants and eliminate 6,450 jobs.
Pillowtex, which had employed about 7,650 people in the United States and Canada and made towels, sheets and other home products under the Cannon, Fieldcrest and Royal Velvet brands, said it did not have the cash to continue operations.
The U.S. textile industry is suffering from its worst economic crisis in decades because of soft consumer demand and intense foreign competition. The Deep South has been hit especially hard. The plants being closed include textile manufacturing and distribution facilities.
From the union times daily
Pillowtex officials said a combination of problems including soft consumer demand and intense foreign competition had made it impossible for the company to operate profitably. Vanderford said the losses from the China Trade Bill, which is lifting all barriers to trade with China, come on top of those resulting from NAFTA. He said that over the last decade Union County has lost approximately 1,700 textile jobs, many of them due to NAFTA and other free trade bills.
This China bill is extremely devastating to all manufacturing, he said. China is so big and there's so much productivity over there and wages are so low that everybody's going to there to purchase their goods. Some of the jobs lost have been regained through new companies coming in such as Weavetex, Madeline, CPE, Disney and Union County Printworks.
However, Vanderford said the loss of textile and other manufacturing jobs will get only worse with the China bill taking full affect in 2005. The only thing we can do about it is to contact our congressman and senators and get them to do something about this China bill, he said. If not, then we and much of the rest of the country are in trouble.
Do I need to post more?
Like I said don't let the facts get in your way!
About UNITE@PillowTex
UNITE has been known as one of the most creative and effective "organizing unions." And yet, even though UNITE organizes around 24,000 new members every year, the union continues to shrink every year because more members are lost through shop closings than are gained through new organizing. For instance, the textile giant Pillowtex closed its doors this year, putting 7,000 UNITE members out of work. Pillowtex is emblematic of the union's whole struggle, how we work so hard and so long to give workers a voice in their jobs, and how quickly we can lose what we've won. The first union drive at Pillowtex was in 1946, when the company was called Cannon Mills; it was a mill town then, where the company owned literally everything from the stores to the schools. The first union election at Cannon was in 1974, and over the next quarter century, the union lost four elections at the company, each one of them tainted by vicious, illegal anti-union tactics by the company. In 1999, the union finally won!But the following year the company filed for bankructy, and even though it survived, with the union's help, it continued to face difficulties. And then this year it finally closed.
UNITE has many Pillowtexes, companies where workers fought so hard to win their union, and then went out of business. Employers have been moving jobs offshore for decades, to places where workers are more vulnerable and wages are far lower. Not just UNITE has suffered as a result. The entire labor movement has experienced decline. Between the offshoring of jobs, the hostility of employers to union drives, and weak labor laws, U.S. unions have been steadily losing jobs. Only 13% of the U.S. workforce is now organized; in the private sector, it's even lower, 9%.
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