N.C. job losses spur anger, fear in textile belt

Raleigh News & Observer ^ | September 28, 2003 | ROB CHRISTENSEN AND AMY GARDNER

[sarcasm]

ping

[gunnedah]

At the risk of making a lot of people mad I feel I must still say this.
I worked in textiles for many years and members of my family still do and I must say even they may disagree with what I am about to say.
The South has paid for losing the civil war for years.Our labor value has been lessened and so our standard of living has not progressed with the North.
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.After being released from the military after being drafted I went back to my old job in textiles and the first week back I lost over twenty pounds.The heat and the humidity in the department I worked in always surpassed 95 degrees and 100% humidity. I have seen supervisors walking around giving people salt tablets and have even seen people passing out from heat.
I believe if one will check we mostly worked for the profit of investors as is done today.
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. It just seems as though from what I can tell the South has always been used this way. 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. 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. Also I must say that these Hispanics are living in conditions most Americans with few exceptions would not endure but we have this going on to keep the poors standard of living bearable and to make the rich, richer. 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.In other words slavery still is around in America whether you want to believe it or not, 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. There will have to be a revolt of some kind in America in the coming years because not anyone looks out for the real working class of America,neither the Democrats nor Republicans.
Nuff said! Fire away.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

You make some very good points.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Before I start I'd like to say to gunnedah (#3) that I pretty much agree and I am hearing more and more of the slave analogy. Some say that to continue "cheap labor" some form of ILLEGAL immigration by the millions will have to continue as long as there is (what's left of) America.

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.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Five years ago the moniker "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin" was borrowed to post here. In all of that time, almost no one has listened. Due to the greed, immorality and rejection of God...the end result is inevitable.

"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people." Proverbs 14:34

[gunnedah]

I totally agree with the last two statements!

[bimbo]

Both Democrats AND Republicans foisted NAFTA, GATT, WTO, etc on us. Both Parties should feel the voter wrath - but they won't. Incumbents will be re-elected by >95% margin, as Democrats blame Bush and Republicans; and Republicans blame Clinton and Democrats. Politicians win - Voters lose.

[bimbo]

I can't argue with you ... When America was a God-fearing religious Nation, America received God's Blessings.

[fortaydoos]

You make a lot of valid points but anyone who suggests that "laborers" are anything other than mill fodder gets tagged as a commie around here (usually be 18 year high school kids who listen to too much talk radio).

[Gritty]

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.

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!

[philetus]

It's called redistributing the wealth.
A major goal of communism.

[gunnedah]

Most of the time when I speak of something I have experienced it and know about it first hand.My parents worked in textile all of their lives. I still have a sister in textiles so I know something about it.
As I child I remember people talking of going to work at the age of tweleve and even some younger who had to stand on boxes to reach the machines they used. I say this to show what the other side lived like. The South paid for the civil war but the leaders of the South didnt plus carpet baggers stole and pillaged from poor uneducated Southerners.But you know what? It is still taking place, the sister I speak of has lost over half of her retirement nest egg through the rich and powerful on Wall Street stealing it and she did not have the inside information that Martha and her crowd had to get out.
It is amazing, you can rob a bank with a gun, get $1500.00 dollars and serve 15 years. You steal a million with a pencil and get probation at the most and pay some of it back.The Criminal JUST-US System in America is just that "JUST-US" who have the controls and ability to brainwash the masses.
When a worker does not produce he gets fired.When a Billion dollar business loses millions the CEO is rewarded with a pay raises and a large bonus.This is called education, right?

[coloradan]

The South has paid for losing the civil war for years.

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.

[alrea]

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!

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.

[gunnedah]

I agree with your premise it is the governments fault but the government is run and controlled by the rich.
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.
If half of what you make goes to taxes then you are not rich 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.
Even though the Hispanics live better than they did in Mexico doesnt entitle us to take advantage of them the way this country does. You could also argue the slaves that were brought over here were better off.
Whether you agree or not it is a class issue and not one of race in this country.

[coloradan]

but the government is run and controlled by the rich.

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.

[gunnedah]

I agree that votes are bought and sold by those in government.
Textiles were skilled along with added labor and terrible working conditions.
I agree on the high priced lawyers nor either am I poor but I have been.
Food is one of the most valuable commodites in the world and probably water is the most expensive for what it cost bottlers to bottle compared to what it sells for so I guess I make your arguement for you on supply and demand.
We are still taking advantage of the Hispanics because we set the bait for them and dont enforce illegal immigration.
Government is more corrupt than the MAFIA ever was and too many Americans could care less. You can bet there will be a payday someday.

[RiflemanSharpe]

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!


I agree with you totally. The American worker can compete against any other country on a level field. The current free trade agreements are not level and are costing jobs by the 1000's. This will be a significant issue in the next election.

[billbears]

Posted here

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)