Imports Sacrifice Jobs On TheAltar Of Free Trade @ by Robert E. Swift (NAPSA)—It runs several pages long and covers most states east of the Mississippi. Some of the biggest, most well-known names in the industry are involved. In manyof these places, it represents economic devastation. “It” is a list of textile mill closings from 1995 to 2001. The “obituaries” for these mills signal the end of hundredsof thousands of jobs in the textile and apparel industry and there is no end in sight. The closing of these once productive places is a predictable outcome of the North American Free Trade Agreement andits close relative, globalization. The implications of this longterm downward job spiral are farreaching and dangerous to our economy, especially these days as we scramble to save every employment opportunity we can. “Declining Job Market Drops Consumer Confidence, Again” said the headline of an article in Women’s Wear Daily. “Consumer confidence dipped for the second straight month in August, as the recent involuntary exodus from corporate life weighed heavily on consumers’ minds. “This suggests rising unemployment ahead. The nation’s unemployment numbers now bear watching, since continued weakness in the job market could translate to slower consumer spending, according to the Conference Board.” Someof the job losses are preventable. They are not related toa sour economy, but rather to government policies that virtually encourage manufacturers to move factories, plants and mills to foreign countries where labor is cheap. This, in turn, affects vital economic statistics such as jobs and balance of trade and, of course, consumerconfidence. In August, manufacturing pay- rolls shrank by 141,000 jobs, the most since July 1998. Overall unemployment rose to 4.9 percent. This type of drop is nothing new for the textile and apparel industry, which has seen a steady decline in its numbers for many years. The House Textile Caucus has taken its concerns to the Administration. As it noted, its issue is not protection- ism, which it does not advocate, but ratherfair trade. The group requests four things: crack down on importers whocircumvent U.S. quotas and duties; press for countries to open their markets to imports; enforce antidumping laws and impose punitive tariffs when imports are sold at below the cost of production, and incorporate clauses in future trade deals that would protect U.S. manufacturers from low-cost imports from countries with weakened currencies. The textile and apparel industry alone has lost more than 600,000 jobs since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into being in 1994—many as a direct conse- quence of the perceived advantages of moving jobs to Third World countries (in this instance Mexico), whose citizens suffer from a poor standard of living and are thus drawn to work that pays appallinglylittle. There is little advantage to this turn of events for the American consumer, but lots of down- side. Though on the surface it would seem U.S. consumers would reap the benefits of lower manufacturing costs, many com- panies simply add the savings to the profit line without passing them along. Yet the Administration plows ahead with additional measures whichare likely to exacerbate the job losses in America. At the recent meeting of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas held in Buenos Aires, the Administra- tion said, “The global market belongs to the low cost producer.” This simplistic statement does not account for the circumstances that enable a foreign low cost producer to achieve that status, such as slave-like wages and non-compliance with environmental regulation or provision of reasonable workplaceconditions. The Made in U.S.A. label is a consumer’s guide to saving American jobs—a more important imperative than ever before. Look for it when you shop. Robert E. Swift is executive director of the Crafted with Pride in U.S.A. Council, headquartered in New York City.
