Imports force Hooker's downtown factory to close

The Raleigh News & Observer ^ | Thursday, August 7, 2003 | The Associated Press

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

KERNERSVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Ronnie Simmons draped an American flag over a home entertainment center, the last piece of furniture to be made at Hooker's downtown Kernersville plant.

Not even hugs and handshakes could console the burly worker on the last day of his 29-year career at the plant.

'It's all just hit me now, that this is it,' Simmons said Wednesday.

For Simmons and 259 other Hooker Furniture Corp. employees, the piece symbolized a casket that recognized and honored the death of another U.S. manufacturing plant - a scene that is being played out repeatedly across the country's manufacturing base.

Yesterday, Hooker completed the final production run at the plant that it has owned and operated since 1970. The plant was built in the late 1800s.

Hooker, which imports about 50 percent of its product line, decided to close the Kernersville plant because it is the oldest and smallest of the company's wood-production plants.

Hooker Furniture will continue to operate three wood furniture plants and four upholstery plants in North Carolina, and two plants in Virginia.

Though it is the first plant closing for Hooker Furniture, the Kernersville shutdown is far from the first for the region's furniture industry, which has been threatened by the growing tide of imports.

Nearly 3,000 people have lost their jobs in North Carolina this year as furniture manufacturers close plants and slash work forces, according to the state Employment Security Commission.

"It's like a death in the family," said Lewis Cantor, vice president of manufacturing for Hooker Furniture.

Hooker is providing workers with severance packages, said Jack Palmer, the vice president of human resources for Hooker. Hooker is paying the cost of the workers' health and dental insurance through August, and the workers will receive their Christmas bonus.

Under the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, the workers are expected to receive extended unemployment benefits and have up to 65 percent of its COBRA health-insurance premiums paid for by the federal government.

"We've got to grin and bear this day out,' Simmons said. "But we know things are going to get worse from here on out until our government wakes up to the realities of what imports are doing to the people it's supposed to be protecting."

[Ramius]

I'm not categorically against modest tariffs, sensibly imposed.

I'm not, however, sure that it would be enough to really do much to stop the flow of business out of the U.S. I also don't buy the argument that it is labor cost that it driving business out. Sure, labor is a factor, but I think more than anything we are regulating U.S. companies to death.

[oceanview]

all of a sudden? 3 years ago, this wasn't happening, has there been some surge in regulations in the last 3 years that has prompted this move against white collar employees?

[Brimack34]

We lost 42,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001 in Minnesota. There is only 4.8 million people here. Someone has too wake up. The left here needs too wake up, they are pissed we did not raise taxes on business!! So much so there are trying too smear the Gov.

[dirtydanusa]

A friend of mine is constantly going to China because his job is moving there and they are paying him to train the Chinese. He says the factory construction in Shanghi is incredible, mostly American name companies cashing in on cheap labor, no healthcare or retirement. He says his company pays the chinese $0.20 an hour, 96 hrs a week straight pay. He told me that a Walmart factory is in the process of moving one of it's factories out of Shanghi and into a small rural town where they will house and feed the people in instead of paying them.

[Cacophonous]

We are running a trade deficit. That means that we are importing more than we are exporting. Which means we are paying people more than they are paying us.

[Cacophonous]

At the very least, tariffs should be imposed to protect those businesses vital to national security. Why this notion is troublesome to people, I don't know. Even those that call themselves conservatives oppose this. Perplexing.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

"The plant was built in the late 1800s."

It survived several previous recessions and cycles, but not this one. This one is different.