More textile plants closing

1,300 workers set to lose jobs in 2008

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

RUSSELL HUBBARD

News staff writer

Textile workers in east Alabama have gotten some tough holiday news this month, with the notice that nearly 1,300 of them are set to lose their jobs.

Plant closings at three big textile makers in Valley, Piedmont and Eufaula account for the job losses. One plant is already gone. The Wellstone Mills plant in Eufaula that employed 117 people closed earlier this month, according to notices given to the Alabama Office of Workforce Development.

That will soon be followed by many more job losses. In February, Georgia-based WestPoint Home plans to eliminate 850 jobs by closing two plants in Valley, which is on the Georgia border near Auburn. In April, South Carolina-based Springs Global will trim 325 jobs by closing a yarn plant in Piedmont, which is on the Georgia border east of Gadsden.

The steady decline of the Alabama textile business has gone on for years. The job losses and plant closings are reminders that substantial parts of Alabama lack the medical research, biotech investing, defense contracting and automotive manufacturing that have made urban areas such as Birmingham, Huntsville and Montgomery prosper.

Those industries enjoy an advantage textile manufacturing doesn't - they can't be easily and cheaply copied by overseas competitors who pay low wages, collect government subsidies and sell their finished goods to eager U.S. retailers.

"What is it?" said Roland Meyers, a vice president at South Carolina-based Springs Global. "Everyone knows what it is. It's competition from overseas."

For Eufaula, population 14,000, it's the second major loss in the past six months. In July, South Carolina-based Wellstone Mills said it was cutting 125 jobs by closing another plant in the Barbour County city.

"The increasing level of textile and apparel imports has continued to erode the company's customer base and reduced demand," Wellstone said in a statement. "This move is a sad and a difficult one for the people and the community."

Major overseas sources of apparel, yarn and home furnishings include China, India, Pakistan and most countries in Central America.

It has been a bloody year in Alabama's textile belt. So far this year, textile makers have notified state regulators of their intent to eliminate 3,600 jobs, mostly through permanent plant closings. There were about 36,000 textile-related jobs in Alabama at the end of October, according to the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations.

The American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, which opposes free trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, says more than 1 million textile jobs have been lost in the United States since 1994. That's when NAFTA, which eliminated tariffs on goods flowing between Canada, Mexico and the United States, went into effect.

"Americans aren't buying fewer bath towels and bed sheets," said Lloyd Wood, AMTAC's membership chief. "It is purely imports related to countries with government subsidies and low labor costs."

Textile imports into the United States since 2001 have risen to $97 billion, from $70 billion, Wood said.

E-mail: rhubbard@bhamnews.com