Posted on 09/28/2003 4:52:22 AM PDT by sarcasm
WILKESBORO --Tammy Johnson watched her job hauled out the door at Ansell Golden Needles, one of a dozen textile factories to shut down in Wilkes County in the past three years.
Johnson, 34, made work gloves until February 2002. But before she left, she wrapped her machine in plastic. She helped crate it for shipment to Mexico. She even helped make training videos and write manuals for the people who would replace her.
The ordeal made Johnson very angry -- not at her employer, but at the elected leaders she believes pushed her job out of the country.
"Our president promised that he would bring new jobs to the states affected by NAFTA," Johnson said. "We have yet to get any attention in our area."
For three years, the bad news has rolled as unstoppably as a freight train across North Carolina's Piedmont.
A recession has swept the entire state, including the Triangle. But fear about the future and anger at politicians is particularly pronounced in the heavily Republican manufacturing spine running through the middle of the state, where dozens of textile mills and furniture factories have shut their doors, where jobs making cigarettes and fiber-optics have vanished by the thousand.
Now, once-safe Republicans are worried that this wrath could hurt their ticket next year from President Bush on down.
Voters are "scared to death," said U.S. Rep. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem, who is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate next year. He believes the White House and Congress must pay more attention to job losses in North Carolina.
In Burr's hometown, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. announced this month it will eliminate 2,600 jobs, 40 percent of its work force.
A statewide poll for The News & Observer this month found that the economy and jobs are by far the most important issues facing the state and nation. Concern has risen as the recovery has stalled.
North Carolina's 6.5 percent unemployment rate -- which was 3.8 percent three years ago -- is now the ninth-highest in the country. In August, the state's work force declined by 23,034, a figure exceeded only in Michigan. In three years, jobs have declined by 141,890, according to the Employment Security Commission.
Only 39 percent of those polled say that the state's elected leaders are doing enough to improve the economy. Only 41 percent say that Bush has done enough to protect furniture, textiles and other manufacturing industries from foreign trade.
Critics blame free-trade deals, starting with the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, for giving manufacturing jobs to lower-paid foreign workers. But many experts say that on balance, freer trade helps the economy .
"When textiles started going bad, nobody did anything," said Lester Adkins Jr., 46, a 25-year veteran of Carolina Mills in Catawba County whose plant is closing this week . Adkins, a foreman, accepted a $2-an-hour pay cut to take a job at another plant. "People keep saying they're going to do something about it," he said, "but I been hearing that since Reagan was in there."
An alarm goes off
Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte is choosing far stronger words than her colleagues.
Last month, Myrick charged that Bush, a close political ally, was "out of touch" on the trade issues. Myrick represents the 9th District, including the former textile powerhouse of Gaston County.
"If he doesn't care about us, we won't care about him come election time," Myrick told the Gaston Chamber of Commerce, her words striking like an alarm bell.
Several GOP congressmen cheered her on, saying she expressed the views of many textile-belt Republicans.
"We were doing all the right things and having all the right meetings and nothing was happening," she said in an interview. "I came to the end of my rope. It's sort of like in your family. When you have a problem, sometimes you need tough love."
It was the demise of Pillowtex that heightened awareness of the problem. The Cabarrus County textile company closed in August, throwing about 5,000 North Carolinians out of work.
Pillowtex's closing was particularly poignant -- and potentially damaging -- to Republican Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord, who represents the 8th District.
His family created the textile giant 116 years ago. But Hayes cast the deciding ballot in a 215-214 House vote in 2001 for giving Bush broader authority to sign trade agreements.
Torn between his president and the workers back home, Hayes broke down in tears after the vote.
And he has paid a political price ever since. When Hayes walked into a Kannapolis auditorium last month to meet with former Pillowtex workers, one reportedly shouted: "Thanks for sending the jobs overseas, Robin."
In his third term in a district that could swing to either party, Hayes has reason for concern. But he and other Republican lawmakers say they see the administration becoming more responsive. The president recently agreed to appoint a new assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing. He plans to put new pressure on China to devalue the yuan, which would raise the price of Chinese imports and make U.S. goods more competitive. And he has promised to increase penalties for illegal trade shipments.
Fierce discontent
Nowhere is the anger greater than in the 10th Congressional district, the most blue-collar district in the nation, according to The Almanac of American Politics.
The heart of the district is the Hickory metropolitan area, which was humming with producers of textiles, furniture and fiber optics just three years ago.
The combination of loosened trade restrictions, competition for cheap labor and the recession has cost the region 25,062 jobs in three years. In August, the area's unemployment rate was 9 percent, up from a low of 1.8 percent in 2000.
The closings haven't stopped. This week , Maiden-based Carolina Mills will shutter a yarn-spinning factory in Newton, laying off 65.
The company's chairman, George Moretz, says he feels helpless against foreign competition. That's one reason Moretz is thinking about challenging nine-term Republican Cass Ballenger, the congressman from Hickory whose political troubles result directly from his support of trade agreements. Last year Ballenger beat back his strongest opposition since he was first elected in 1986.
The anger comes from executives and mill workers, from Republicans and Democrats.
"Not a damn soul is paying any attention in Raleigh or Washington," said Andy Wells, 49, a Hickory commercial real estate broker and conservative Republican.
"[Gov. Mike] Easley goes to Cabarrus but doesn't set foot here," Wells said. "We don't hear from Cass Ballenger. [U.S. Sen. John] Edwards doesn't know we exist. I haven't seen a lot of [U.S. Sen. Elizabeth] Dole up here."
Even Ballenger was taken aback by his constituents' anger at last month's Soldiers' Reunion parade in nearby Newton, which he has attended for 30 years. Ballenger blames some of his woes on the attention given to Pillowtex.
"We have lost more jobs than Pillowtex," he said. "But Oprah Winfrey didn't pay any attention to us."
Wells, a former 10th District GOP chairman, said the area has been ignored because Republicans take it for granted and Democrats write it off. He said voters may now be more open to other options -- a Republican challenger or a Democrat.
"It is a question of which candidate will make the case that their policies are going to do something for this specific area," he said.
Lasting anger?
Voters' anger is not lost on Democrats. Although former President Clinton, a Democrat, helped push through NAFTA, Democrats now hope to associate the Bush administration and other Republicans with the most recent trade agreements and job losses.
It was no coincidence that Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, made his formal presidential announcement this month in front of a closed textile mill in Robbins where his father once worked.
And Easley, also a Democrat, assails the trade policies coming out of Washington, particularly what he believes is weak enforcement of trade laws.
Still, Republicans are not accepting all the economic blame. At a GOP gubernatorial forum last week in Charlotte, candidates accused Easley of not cultivating a friendly business climate. They called for tax cuts for business.
Bush, who easily carried North Carolina in 2000 with 56 percent of the vote, remains popular here, according to The N&O's poll. But the president's approval rating has fallen from 67 percent in January to 56 percent this month.
Voters' most difficult choice could come in next year's Senate race. If the contest pits Erskine Bowles, Clinton's chief of staff, against Burr, the congressman, their past support for trade agreements could neutralize each other.
But the biggest questions are whether the economy will improve by November 2004, and whether jobs, or the war on terrorism, will be foremost in voters' minds.
For Sarah Johnson, 56, of Lincoln County , about to lose her job at Carolina Mills in Newton after 29 years, it's hard to imagine that anything will loom larger than her community's economic woes.
"This has been going on for so long and they just seem to be turning their heads," she said. "I don't care if they're Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, whatever. Their policies are costing us our jobs."
I am definitely on the doom-and-gloom side. But statements like the following that put the blame entirely on the president are nuts.
"Our president promised that he would bring new jobs to the states affected by NAFTA," Johnson said. "We have yet to get any attention in our area."
First it makes it easy for the crowd that responds with "stores and restaurants are crowded, things are booming, you're a Bush hating commie!"
What can a president do that immediately "fixes" the problem? Key word is immediately. The article mentions China's playing with its yuan.
He plans to put new pressure on China to devalue the yuan, which would raise the price of Chinese imports and make U.S. goods more competitive. And he has promised to increase penalties for illegal trade shipments.
Devalue the yuan? I thought it was under-valued requiring less dollars to buy them to purchase goods made in the workers' paradise II. But the point is President Bush is doing something. It's a start.
Fat chance that anyone can influence chi-com ideologues. And those illegal trade shipments, I believe China is by far the worst offender for violating copyright, patents, trademarks, everything. We are not dealing with a normal government there.
China is just one part of globalization. This is going to take years of adjustments.
Then there's the story that Singapore Technologies Telemedia will likely take control of bankrupt Global Crossing Ltd. I believe this involves most if not all of the cheap bandwidth (under seas cables) our corporations' offshore stampede depends upon. Bandwidth is no different than our dependence upon foreign oil.
In the meantime, unless it affects them some will get dynamite schadenfreude highs for years.
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people." Proverbs 14:34
This is what's called "fair trade" today in America.
We ship our machinery overseas to run their factories and build their middle class. They ship their poor, excess population here to use our education and welfare systems, take our remaining lower-end jobs, and destroy our middle class.
If the Republicans don't grab a hold of this one fast, they're toast. Americans are not going to put up with this much longer. Whoever promises to do something about it and says the "right" things will win the elections. That "whoever" will be demogogueing Democrats, and the people will vote for them!
Actually, we all have, what with the expansive federal government and the erosion of state's rights for a century.
Our labor value has been lessened and so our standard of living has not progressed with the North.
I'm not sure this has to do with losing the civil war. If you grow tobacco and cotton, you might be waylaid in an economy based on pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology or computers, software and microchips whether or not you had slaves. Manual labor is simply not as valuable as skilled labor, and if that's all the local population is able to do, the local economy will suffer.
My understanding is that textile was brought to the South because of cheap labor and so were a lot of other manual labor jobs as well because of UNIONS not being in the South. As a young man I worked in textiles and I must say I do not believe slaves worked any harder or in a worse set of working conditions.
In other words, the South of the past was the Mexico of today.
I believe if one will check we mostly worked for the profit of investors as is done today.
This is class-warfare rhetoric of the 'rats. You worked for your paycheck, and investors bought into companies they thought were valuable. In many cases, if it weren't for the investors, there would be no factory built to work in at all. Would that be better?
America has always been known for making the rich richer and our system works around this pretense with those doing the labor fighting daily for better wages and working conditions.
More class-warfare rhetoric. The poor here get richer too - compare America's "poor" with the poor of nearly anywhere else in the WORLD.
It just seems as though from what I can tell the South has always been used this way.
I'm sure you will find many Greens who will contend that the foregoing is true of all working classes, everywhere, From factory workers in Detroit to "sweatshops" in every third world country across the globe. Working long hours at low pay simply to make the rich richer. (They say, which is why sweatshops should be banned and why there should be a "living wage," they also say.)
So all of slave labor was not in shackles and chains. We now have another form of slave labor in America that is arising. To keep somes standard of living high enough we must have this form of slavery since America and her welfare system help numerous Americans stay away from this labor that no one is willing to do so cheaply.
You have it exactly backwards. Slavery is forced labor without compensation. If you want to talk about slavery, consider all the "rich" people who must pay for the welfare rolls, so that other people can sit on their butts - or pump out babies so they can collect bigger checks. About half of what I make is forcibly confiscated from me in the form of taxes, meaning that half the time I work, I don't get paid for it at all. That is slavery.
This new slave system is the Hispanics that are flooding the South doing this manual labor that Americans refuse to do on the farm and other endeavors of slave labor.
You are confusing "unskilled" labor with "slave" labor. While it is true that the types of jobs done are similar, it isn't because slavery has returned, but merely because slaves were unskilled laborers, the same as the Hispanics of which you speak today. There are only so many things unskilled laborers can do, and they tend to not be extremely valuable to do.
Also I must say that these Hispanics are living in conditions most Americans with few exceptions would not endure
... nevertheless, it beats the conditions found where they come from, which is why many Mexicans risk jail or deportation to come here for the better life, rather than having Americans illegally enter Mexico to find better opportunities south of the border.
but we have this going on to keep the poors standard of living bearable and to make the rich, richer.
More class-warfare rhetoric. No, "we" do not "have this going" at all. There are better opportunities here than there, so they come here rather than staying where they are. Simple economics.
In turn in a few years the Hispanics will be where the slaves and the poor white people were before we reached the plateau we are at now.
What? Able to vote? Oh yeah, that's happening in Kalifornistan.
In other words slavery still is around in America whether you want to believe it or not,
Yes it is - taxes.
textile is just moving to Mexico because the labor force is wiser today and evolved enough where those born in this country refuse to be hearded around like a bunch of cattle and to take what the master dishes out.
Listen to what you are saying - you are saying that American textile workers are voluntarily quitting, which is forcing the companies to have to move out of this country in order to find laborers stupid enough to work for them. But that is handily contradicted by the article: Johnson, 34, made work gloves until February 2002. But before she left, she wrapped her machine in plastic. She helped crate it for shipment to Mexico. She even helped make training videos and write manuals for the people who would replace her. The ordeal made Johnson very angry -- not at her employer, but at the elected leaders she believes pushed her job out of the country. Sounds like she isn't happy her job is vanishing - and she blames it on politicians, not on the "rich getting richer."
In my opinion, the problem is that regulations here are so onerous that companies have decided to play by somebody else's rules, somewhere else, with the obvious consequence that American jobs are lost. This is completely the fault of the American government, who promulgate thousands of pages of new regulations every year. If you fail to follow any one of them, you can be fined, shut down, and/or criminally charged - and ignorance of the law is no excuse. Kali serves as an example, having more regulations, taxes, and BS than other places within this country, and we are seeing companies flee that state for others at a rapid rate. (For example, Buck Knives, moving to ID.)
You are right about one thing, though, neither 'rats nor Republicans are doing the right thing: lessening the regulatory burden on companies. Hence, the problem will get worse.
Does anyone think that either party or any policy can change any of the things spoken of in this thread? It is not likely.
Taxes must be cut to stimulate job creation and demand.
The most simple process of change is the plan published in Investor's Business Daily, by Bill O'neil. Every person in this country has benefitted financilaly from free trade. It may not be helping on the job front. Textile work is third world work, like above posts suggest. Americans have a responsibility to mankind to gradually progress. Textiles is not progress; textile equipment might be.
Unfortunately significant education is required. Entertainment, must take a back seat to education and progress. America must stay ahead of tyrants, socialism and other evils in the world. They are dangerous times, as 911 proved. In other words we ain't gonna stop people like Bin Laden or Hillary Clinton by creating a third world economic workers paradise.
My suggestion today would be to go online and subscribe to Investor's Business Daily( www.investors.com) and drive the education progress. It's not just about investment education. I am in no way associated with the paper.
Here is the Bill O'neil plan: ...we've been pushing a tax-incentive plan that would unleash entrepreneurs to create new businesses. Coupled with further cuts in interest rates and income taxes (even if just for low- and middle-income earners), the plan should help snap us out of a post-bubble malaise unlike any we've seen since the 1930s.
The tax incentives would be aimed only at Americans who want to start businesses over the next two or three years. The first two years for these small, entrepreneurial start-ups would be tax-free.
The third and fourth years in business would be taxed at half the normal corporate rate. And any stock sold by employees, founders or owners during the first two years would be taxed at half the normal capital gains rate.
We're not that worried about deficits, especially those that inevitably accompany recessions. But Daniels and others taking fire on this front can take comfort in knowing that most start-ups don't make much money in the first couple of years, and therefore wouldn't be contributing much in corporate taxes.
Yet they would, on their own and without any added incentives or requirements, create new jobs and new individual taxpayers.
As for capital gains, Daniels knows that a cut in this tax is usually a revenue generator for the government, not a loser. After the cap-gains rate was lowered to 20% in 1981, for example, income from that source averaged $254 billion a year. After 1987, when it was hiked back to 28%, cap-gains revenue averaged $100 billion less.
Another, more important thing happened during that period when cap gains were taxed at lower rates. Innovators and entrepreneurs created new companies by the thousands and new jobs by the millions.
All these companies were small to start with, but many became the main drivers of the technology and productivity boom of the 1990s. Those that went public carried the bull market on their shoulders and enriched shareholders beyond their wildest dreams.
We see no reason similar incentives wouldn't shape up today's economy, two ugly features of which are no new jobs and no new issues.
The real beauty of this plan, we believe, is its appeal to politicians on both sides of the aisle. In targeting only new businesses started up by little guys, it shouldn't run into the usual objections about "corporate welfare" and "tax breaks for the rich."
Besides, both parties have a stake in this - it's Bush's jobless recovery, but it was Clinton's bubble and recession - and it behooves everyone in this election year to do something meaningful.
We're not saying our plan is bulletproof. We realize, for example, that safeguards would be needed to prevent existing businesses from sheltering income by transferring assets to new ones.
But in this environment, when the economy is trying to recover from a market crash similar to 1929 and an enemy attack on American soil, nothing's a sure thing.
The only thing we are sure of is that doing nothing, or "toughing it out," as one economist suggested the other day, is not an option.
A Democratic Congressman said this plan would increase the deficit. Every income tax cut in history has increased tax revenue.
There are more poor voters than rich ones. Then again, if the government has been configured to pay poor people (welfare, etc) then their votes can be assured to continue the system, even if it isn't in their ultimate interest to do so.
There were plenty of skilled jobs in textiles when I was younger I dont know about today and those jobs were not rewarded for the skills. I know of a lot of college educated people who were not capable of doing them but they could take a pencil and paper and put more work on people than they could bare.
It may be so that there are some skilled textile jobs, note that the woman in the article was asked to produce a training video. But the overall job breakdown isn't as skilled as would be the case for higher-tech ones, for example.
If half of what you make goes to taxes then you are not rich
I may not be rich but I'm not poor either. But I certainly can't afford the million dollar lawyers who could tell me how to set up a tax shelter that would absolve me of future tax liability, like the really rich people can and do (thanks to the insanely complex tax "code".)
and for your information the labor you speak of that is not valuble I take exception to. Any persons time and labor is of value and for your information the food you buy so cheaply stays that way because of cheap labor.
There's a circular argument in there. The labor is cheap because the goods produced are not very valuable, and the lack of value makes the job low-paying. Consider fast food: you can make minimum wage, or a little more, flipping burgers. And burgers are cheap. Is that because the workers are "exploited" to flip burgers, so the burgers are cheap? No! I buy and eat burgers, but only because they are cheap - it costs $3 for a burger meal at Wendy's, compared to $6 at the local sit-down Chinese restaurant. If the burger-flippers and other workers there demand double the pay, the burger will cost $6 - and for the money I'd rather have broccoli beef, rice, tea, dessert, and a quite atmosphere. In which case the burger flippers will be laid off because they aren't selling burgers. The market sets the price of things - and you and I participate in the market by buying what we desire at prices we are willing to pay.
Even though the Hispanics live better than they did in Mexico doesnt entitle us to take advantage of them the way this country does.
Let me get this clear: We aren't taking advantage of them - they come here willingly and knowingly, often illegally, because their situation is better here than south of the border. If we eliminate all the jobs filled by them, we make things worse for them, not better, because they no longer have the opportunities that they presently choose to accept. (And no, I don't support illegal immigration - but that's a different issue.)
You could also argue the slaves that were brought over here were better off.
Whether they were or not is entirely beside the point. Slaves were forcibly seized and brought here at gunpoint. The Hispanics come here of their own free will, often at great expense and personal risk doing so. That is absolutely different than in the case of slaves bought in Africa and transported here in chains.
Whether you agree or not it is a class issue and not one of race in this country.
It doesn't matter if I agree or not - it's a different question, as my above answer indicates.
Only noted because hardly any Giddy supporters showed up on that thread either. And considering it had to do about NC and life in our state. Heaven knows where Giddy could have been < /sarcasm> (as if her fat rear end has seen NC since we gave her what she wanted, a place of power in DC)
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