Free Republic

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Furniture industry - Push to survive Bankruptcies. Plant closings. Hundreds of workers with nowhere to turn. It's all familiar to North Carolina's textile industry after nearly a decade of free trade, but now it's happening in furniture factories throughout the state. Stoneville Furniture of Rockingham County, known for casual dining furniture, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month for the third time in 15 years. Hooker Furniture of Martinsville, Va., this month closed a 270-worker plant in Kernersville, blaming the economy and cheap imports. Next month, Broyhill Furniture will let...

Tech workers asked to instruct their overseas replacements SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 10 — Scott Kirwin clung to his job at a large investment bank through several rounds of layoffs last year. Friends marveled at the computer programmer´s ability to dodge pink slips during the worst technology downturn in a decade. But it was tough for Kirwin, 36, to relish his final assignment: training a group of programmers from India who would replace him within a year.        “THEY CALLED IT 'knowledge acquisition,”´ the Wilmington, Del., resident said. “We got paid our normal salaries to train people to do our jobs....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Sending me many suggestions, readers have beseeched me to revive the "nothink nation" theme that I developed in six columns during April and May of 2002. I doubt that editors have that big a stomach for the subject, but I will risk one more column. My target is Bruce Bartlett's syndicated column of Aug. 14, "Manufacturing is not in trouble " (duplicate thread) Like neocons who label people concerned with the facts of the case for the invasion of Iraq as "anti-American left-wing extremists," Bartlett labels me a protectionist "on the...

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...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - In the aftermath of the Pillowtex bankruptcy and the largest mass layoff in state history, Gov. Mike Easley appealed Tuesday to President Bush for aid for the state's struggling textile industry. "This is just the latest bad news stemming from the impact of federal trade policies on our manufacturing industry," Easley wrote in a letter to Bush that was announced in a news release. "Since 1994, our textile and apparel industry has lost 138,300 jobs and our manufacturing industry as a whole has lost 200,000 jobs." Easley's...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.As many as 400 workers at the Ormet Corp.'s Reduction Plant in Hannibal could be laid off within 60 days, according to company officials. Ormet Primary Aluminum Corp. today announced that market conditions through the remainder of the year will determine whether it will be forced to curtail up to three of the six potlines at its Hannibal Reduction Plant. The curtailments may be necessary due to prolonged weak metal prices, volatility of alumina and energy prices, as well as other rising costs. As a result and as required by the Worker...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. NEW BRITAIN — More than 1,200 factory workers, manufacturing executives and supporters packed a rally Friday, demanding fair trade. Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., and U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, and Nancy Johnson, R-New Britain, all promised to join the fight alongside small and medium-sized manufacturers, who gathered under the umbrella name MAD in USA, which stands for Manufacturing Awareness Day. "If we don´t have a manufacturing sector, we don´t have an economy. If we don´t have manufacturing jobs, we don´t have a middle class," Johnson told the cheering crowd gathered...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.MILL VALLEY, Calif. - Mill Valley's newest 500 employees work cheap, start early, stay late and never gripe about where their office is located. That's because the employees are all goats. Mill Valley hired the four-legged firefighters to gobble up tinder-dry brush and grass on four acres at the Edgewood Reservoir. "These are working goats," said Fire Battalion Chief Greg Moore, lauding the herd that went to work Tuesday. "They are environmentally friendly." The black, white and brown spotted goats will take 21 days to 30 days to eat the area clear...

<p>EDISON, NJ -- Hundreds of workers filed out the Electrolux Home Products gates onto Route 27 under gray skies Thursday afternoon on their final day of work at the plant.</p> <p>About 800 workers lost their jobs over the past two days, as production ended at the air-conditioner factory. Since last year, 1,500 jobs have been cut, with 80 employees remaining until the plant closes later this year, the company said.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. HOUSTON, July 31 -- Anadarko Petroleum Corp. said Thursday it plans to cut its overhead by $100 million, or 15%, by eliminating 400 staff and contract positions, closing offices in Amarillo and Midland, Tex., and focusing spending "on finding and producing oil and natural gas." Half of the proposed savings will come from personnel reductions, including elimination of currently vacant positions. "The remaining $50 million in cuts include across-the-board reductions in general overhead, closing offices in Midland and Amarillo, and consolidating office space at the company's headquarters in The Woodlands," a...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The Bush administration's newly released budget projections reveal an anticipated budget deficit of $450 billion for the current fiscal year, up another $151 billion since February. Supporters and critics of the administration are tripping over themselves to blame the deficit on tax cuts, the war, and a slow economy. But the fact is we have mounting deficits because George W. Bush is the most gratuitous big spender to occupy the White House since Jimmy Carter. One could say that he has become the "Mother of All Big Spenders." The new estimates...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.The number of working Americans continued to decline in July, the nation's Labor Department reported on Friday, despite the first drop in the jobless rate in more than a year. The U.S. Labor Department said non-farm payrolls lost another 44,000 jobs in July following a loss of 72,000 in June. Economists expected to see job gains, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to 100,000. Jobs have been lost in every month so far this year for a total of 486,000. However, the jobless rate fell for the first time in more than a...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Unrestricted trade with China could cause the Carolinas to lose two of every three remaining textile jobs in the next three years, according to a study released Wednesday by the U.S. industry's leading trade group. The American Textile Manufacturers Institute projects North Carolina will lose 85,000 textile and apparel jobs between 2004 and 2006 -- more than any other state. South Carolina would be the third-hardest hit, with 42,000 job losses, according to the report. The study is part of a campaign by ATMI and other textile trade groups to persuade the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.The problem is here, but the solution is in Washington Our region's hearts go out to the thousands of Pillowtex employees who became the latest victims of an international economic shift that they and their employers are powerless to control. Here's how Pillowtex CEO Michael Gannaway explained his company's decision to declare bankruptcy in a letter sent to employees Wednesday: "The textile industry is facing unprecedented increases in global manufacturing capacity combined with softening demand in a tough retail environment. For well over two decades the U.S. textile industry has been under...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Everything´s going to be all right. No, not Bob Marley, but every policymaker from Alan Greenspan to Wim Duisenberg. The A side of 2003 was a bit grim, but turn the record over and the second half will be better. The controls are set to go, the policy framework is solid, better times are ahead. Sound familiar? It should do. This has been what policymakers and their bullish camp followers in the markets and the media have been arguing in each of the past three years. Every year, they say the good...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.HARLINGEN, Texas - Fruit of the Loom of Texas, Inc. will close its Harlingen plant at year's end, eliminating 791 jobs and erasing the last of the region's textile industry, officials said Tuesday. Company officials said the plant was no longer viable. During the past two years, Cameron County also lost its Levi Strauss, Haggar and William Carter plants. Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Co. closed its second of two service uniform plants in July 2002, after 40 years in business, eliminating about 670 jobs. San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. announced in April 2002...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Bush sends team traveling across state WAUSAU — Three key members of President Bush´s economic team ended a daylong, three-city bus trek across Wisconsin on Tuesday with an earful of economic anxiety. The cabinet officials — who have a reputation for always remaining on message, in this case about the administration´s jobs and growth policies — frequently deviated from their theme to hear from workers and small manufacturers concerned about the flow of jobs to China. Also mentioned: Rising health costs, the service sector´s low wages and a proposed federal regulation that...

<p>Why is it that with the economy struggling and unemployment rising steadily, there has been little or no press coverage of the Chile-Singapore Trade Bill due to be voted on in the House and the Senate in the next few days? How many of your readers are aware that this bill contains provisions to bring in "guest workers" from the countries in question? This is supposed to be a trade bill, and is meant to benefit American workers, not send them to the unemployment line.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. ST. LOUIS (AP) -- May Department Stores Co. said Wednesday it will close 32 of its Lord & Taylor stores in 15 states and two other stores under different names, leaving about 3,700 workers without jobs. The targeted stores -- representing 38 percent of Lord & Taylor's sites but just 19 percent of the company's sales -- are in markets where Lord & Taylor lacked a major presence and generally had a small number of stores, the retailer said. St. Louis-based May, pushing to focus on its core markets, will still...

<p>Six months after cutting 185 jobs at its Hattiesburg and Purvis operations, Sunbeam Products Inc. announced Tuesday that 265 more people will lose their jobs as the company plans to shut down its manufacturing facility in Hattiesburg by the end of the year.</p>