Archive Report
Archive Report
Surge of Imports
Bleak Future for American Textile Workers
The Future looks bleak for the nation's oldest industry. Since 1980, 300,000 textile and garment workers have lost their jobs, and employment is at its lowest level since the government began keeping records in the 1940s. The men and women who depend on textiles for a livelihood blame their ills on imports, which have grown an average of 19 percent a year over the past four years. Manufacturers often refer to textiles as “the forgotten giant of American industry. And they warn that without more protection most textile jobs will disappear in the 1990s. “We are going to go down, down, down,” textile worker Carrie Gillen of Mount Holly, N.C., told a House subcommittee during hearings on ...