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Broad Coalition Working to Derail Fast Track Legislation in U.S. Senate |
Current rating: 0 |
by Interview by Between The Lines' Scott Harris
Email: betweenthelines (nospam) snet.net (unverified!)
Address: © 2002 Between the Lines C/O WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, Connecticut USA. |
11 May 2002
Modified: 01:20:56 PM |
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Although likely to pass, opponents have strategy to defeat bill in House. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Patrick Woodall, research director with Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. |
Broad Coalition Working to Derail Fast Track Legislation in U.S. Senate
Although likely to pass, opponents have strategy to defeat bill in House
Interview by Between The Lines' Scott Harris
Last December, the House of Representatives approved by a one-vote margin the Trade Promotion Authority bill opposed by many labor, environmental and human rights activists. The legislation, more commonly known as "Fast Track," is now being considered by the U.S. Senate and is designed to grant the president authority to negotiate future international trade deals with minimal debate and in Congress with no chance for legislators to propose corrective amendments.
If signed into law, Fast Track will enable the White House to expedite approval of the controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty. The FTAA, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, has been criticized for the lack of labor or environmental standards and the power it surrenders to corporations. Although passage in the Senate is likely, a broad coalition of groups opposed to Fast Track are promoting several amendments that they say will defend worker's rights and protect public health, safety and environmental regulations.
Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Patrick Woodall, research director with Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, who discusses what's at stake in the current campaign to defeat fast track trade legislation(A RealAudio Version of this interview may be found at http://www.btlonline.org).
Contact Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch by calling (202) 546-4996 or visit their Web site at www.tradewatch.org
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© 2002 Between the Lines C/O WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, Connecticut USA. |
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A Town Out of Work: Globalization Takes Toll |
by marx's wild-eyed great-great-grandson
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 May 2002
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Ruby Fields, now unemployed, worked for 15 years at the Tultex sweat-shirt plant in Chilhowie, Va. She has no health insurance, her pension appears shaky, her unemployment benefits have run out and her husband is on disability. At age 60, she says, "retraining doesn't make much sense..." (Dan Kegley/TPN)
The story here is about a town in Virginia, but the same thing is happening here in Central Illinois, in US Representative Tim Johnson's district. Does he care about this or do anything about it? No, except for voting to subsidize at the tax-payer's expense US companies that want to leave their US workers behind and move production overseas. See:
http://www.ucimc.org/front.php3?article_id=5259&group=webcast
A Town Out of Work: Globalization Takes Toll on Industries
Warren Vieth
CHILHOWIE, Va. - People in this pocket of Appalachia aren't sure what it's like to work in a Mexican garment factory or an Asian furniture plant. But they know how it feels to be globalized.
For years, manufacturers flocked to Chilhowie and neighboring communities because of their abundant supply of loyal, low-cost workers.
Then, in a sudden turn, plants began shutting down and moving out. Since 1988, Smyth County has lost 10 big factories employing 2,075 workers. Five of the plants and 1,430 of the jobs were in little Chilhowie, population 1,827.
An entire town, in effect, had been traded away.
Chilhowie's experience is a reminder that world commerce can be fickle. It distributes its bounty and assesses its costs unevenly, not just among nations but within them.
"The economists say that over the long haul, this is going to help America," said Town Manager Bill Rush. "But what are we going to do until then? I'm losing another 250 people in 30 days."
But other people in Chilhowie reject the promises of trade.
"Just because you can buy a coffee table for $99 doesn't mean you're going to live well," said Scotty Hopkins, a Chilhowie native who has bounced between employers since 1987.
Boom and bust
Chilhowie, situated near the point where Virginia bumps up against North Carolina and Tennessee, has lived through several cycles of industrial boom and bust.
Its first big employer was Virginia Paving & Sewer Pipe, which shipped its bricks "from Lynchburg to London" until its vein of clay ran out in 1910. Chilhowie Lumber had its run too, supplying logs to build the Panama Canal before going bankrupt.
It was not until the early 1970s that Chilhowie began to transform itself into a thriving industrial town. Local entrepreneurs enticed makers of furniture, clothing and other goods to set up shop along Route 11. Before long, Chilhowie was attracting workers from as far away as Kentucky.
The industrial boom transformed more than just the landscape.
"We went from one breadwinner in the home to the ladies going to work in the sewing factories," said Tom Bishop, who operates a home-supply store, a scrap-metal business and a wood-framing plant in Chilhowie. With the extra income, families could afford bigger houses, better cars and other middle-class amenities.
The good times kept rolling through most of the '70s, '80s and early '90s. Then Chilhowie's world turned upside-down.
In 1994, Congress approved the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. U.S. apparel makers soon found themselves fighting for their lives. Some cut back domestic production; some set up plants in Mexico, where factory workers get only a fraction of the wages paid to Americans.
"To be competitive, you had to go south," said Larry Gibbs, who has managed Spring Ford Industries' knitting mill in Chilhowie since 1988. "I've seen the whole industry go away. It was all based on cost."
Four years ago, Gibbs kept 450 workers busy assembling millions of T-shirts for the likes of Reebok and J.C. Penney. But Spring Ford announced in March that foreign competition was forcing it out of business. Gibbs was forced to lay off his 50 remaining workers.
One by one, Chilhowie's biggest employers have shut their doors. Tultex closed its 200-worker sweat-shirt factory in 1998. The Buster Brown plant, where 300 people assembled children's clothes, followed in 1999. Four months ago, Natalie Knitting Mills shuttered its 350-worker sweater factory. Spring Ford was the latest to fall.
Soon, trade winds began buffeting the furniture industry. When Congress approved permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000, enabling Beijing to join the World Trade Organization, a tidal wave swept across the Pacific and headed straight for Smyth County.
The products were different, but the equation was the same. Furniture-industry officials say it costs about $2,000 a month to keep an American production worker employed. A Chinese factory worker costs about $100.
In September, American of Martinsville began laying off workers in Chilhowie, where 450 people built veneered furniture for hotels and motels.
In April, the firm announced it would close the plant and lay off its 245 remaining workers by mid-June. It blamed competition from imports and the effect of Sept. 11 on the lodging industry.
President Noel Chitwood acknowledged that U.S. trade policy had contributed to the firm's decision to scale back U.S. operations and initiate talks with potential suppliers in Asia.
"I'm forced to change the business model at American of Martinsville to include production from overseas," Chitwood said. "Unfortunately, the cost of that is eliminating jobs in the United States. Is it regrettable? Sure it is. Do I understand the greater good? Not really."
The greater good?
In Chilhowie, the greater good seems unfathomable. How can Americans be better off when so many people are losing their jobs? Where are the new U.S. jobs that global trade is supposed to create? The textbook answer is that layoffs are being offset by job growth in other parts of the economy, such as service industries. But few of those jobs are finding their way to Smyth County.
This distress is putting pressure on local officials to find new employers to take the place of those who left. At the top of everyone's wish list is technology. But it's hard to compete against the magnetic pull of Northern Virginia's bustling high-tech community, especially in a region where nearly 40 percent of the work force didn't finish high school.
"People come up to me on the street and say, 'You ought to be doing something, you ought to be out recruiting high-tech jobs,' " said County Administrator Ed Whitmore. "I'm sorry we can't give them instant results."
Skills of little value
For many apparel workers, the skills they mastered over the years are of almost no value in today's job market. Most of them qualify for up to two years of government-paid retraining. But in Smyth County, retraining offers no guarantees.
For 26 years, Jim Sawyer worked as a sewing-machine mechanic at the Tultex plant. When the company folded, he signed up for machinist training. He eventually got a job at the Virginia Glove factory in nearby Glade Spring. Now, that company is shutting down too, and Sawyer will begin drawing unemployment again in August.
This time, he's thinking about learning to be an electrician. "I've got a daughter who will be 14 here before long," said Sawyer, 46. "I told her I'll probably be going to school when she graduates. We'll just go to college together."
But for some people, a plant closing is the end of the line.
Ruby Fields worked for 15 years as an inspector at the Tultex plant. She applied for other jobs, but got no offers. She has no health insurance, her pension appears shaky, her unemployment benefits have run out and her husband is on disability. At 60, she doesn't think retraining makes much sense.
"I'm too old to do that," she said. "I don't want to go back to school and retrain. What would I retrain for?"
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