Thread: Changing textile industry threatens cotton mill THANKS CAFTA

http://www.news-record.com


Monday, September 19, 2005
Changing textile industry threatens cotton mill

By Justin Cord Hayes
Special to the News & Record

JAMESTOWN -- Oakdale Cotton Mill has provided shelter, provisions and paychecks for its workers since 1865.

But that way of life is threatened as the mill wrestles with a changing global landscape, leaving Oakdale Mill employees with an uncertain future, made more painful by a wealth of memories and history.

Oakdale's leaders want to believe the mill can run indefinitely, despite a precipitous drop in orders during the past decade.

But competition from overseas exports is hurting the entire U.S.-based textile industry. All safeguards protecting domestic production will be gone in three years.

Analysts offer a grim prognosis.

"If there's no resolution to the China problem, all bets are off for the entire U.S. textile industry," said Lloyd Wood, spokesman for Washington's American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition.

For 140 years, the Oakdale Cotton Mill has been one of Jamestown's steadiest employers.

It once provided water for the town.

And the village of about 30 homes surrounding the mill has provided shelter for a century.

When asked about Oakdale's future, 53-year-old Bud Willard was silent for several moments. A resident of one of the mill homes who's worked at Oakdale since he was 16, he expressed hope that the mill would return to the strong, round-the-clock work force it hasn't had in a decade.

Then Willard said he tries not to think about the mill closing. "I don't know what I'd do then," he said.

Oakdale customer service and traffic manager Jeff Johnson grew up a half-mile from the mill. He fished in the Deep River behind the mill and sledded in the winter on Oakdale's gently sloping hills. The 45-year-old Johnson is a third-generation employee.

"All I thought about when I got in school was I'll get a job down at Oakdale," Johnson said. "It's here in the community, right down the street."

"A lot of families have been fed and clothed and housed by Oakdale Cotton Mill," Johnson said. "I can't imagine my life without this mill."

Bud Willard has worked at Oakdale Cotton Mill for more than 35 years. He's also lived in homes in the Oakdale village for most of his life. (H. Scott Hoffmann/News & Record)
H. Scott Hoffmann/News & Record
Bud Willard has worked at Oakdale Cotton Mill for more than 35 years. He's also lived in homes in the Oakdale village for most of his life.
Free-trade agreements, low-cost overseas labor and gradual phasing out of trade restraints have left more than 160,000 textile workers with nothing but memories of their days as mill workers.(Could that be agreeements like NAFTA & CAFTA? Thanks, Sue Myrick, Robin Hayes, Charles Taylor, Richard Burr & Elizabeth Dole.)

That's how many jobs have been lost in North Carolina since 1994, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 3,400 of those jobs were lost in Guilford County.

The recently passed Central American Free Trade Agreement could lead to additional job losses, as it will remove trade restrictions with six Central American countries.(Thanks, Sue Myrick, Robin Hayes, Charles Taylor, Richard Burr & Elizabeth Dole.)

The overseas competition that has shrunk textiles giants has affected Oakdale, as well.

Oakdale had 3,000 to 4,000 accounts a decade ago. It has between 600 and 700 now. A work force of 250 filling three shifts has dwindled to about 50 employees working one 10-hour shift four days a week.

The remaining accounts are enough to keep the mill running, its leaders say.

But there are no guarantees that those accounts won't go elsewhere by 2008, when there will no longer be any safeguards to protect domestic manufacturers from less-expensive overseas labor and imports.

Willard's mill village neighbors, Sonny and Barbara Morgan, do think about the mill closing. They think Oakdale won't be around much longer. They say it's something that employees often talk about.

Mill leaders "just keep dragging (Oakdale) on," Sonny Morgan said. "I just don't know how long it's going to last like it's going. Don't look like it's going to last long."

Morgan, 64, is mostly retired, but he still works occasionally at the mill, where he's been for 45 years.

Sonny and Barbara Morgan agree that Oakdale has always been more than just a place to work.

"Well, it's just meant friends, family. It's just meant home," Barbara Morgan said.

Customer Service Manager Jeff Johnson holds a replica of the 1918 truck his father Paul Johnson made from scraps at Oakdale Cotton Mill in Jamestown. (Joseph Rodriguez/News & Record)
Joseph Rodriguez/News & Record
Customer Service Manager Jeff Johnson holds a replica of the 1918 truck his father Paul Johnson made from scraps at Oakdale Cotton Mill in Jamestown.
"That loyalty, Morgan said, flowed directly from the Ragsdale family, which has operated the mill.

They've always treated employees like friends -- inviting them to parties, attending funerals.

Oakdale's annual Christmas party offers a cornucopia of cakes, potato salad and chicken for mill employees.

At many of these get-togethers, the Morgans said, Ragsdale mentioned not wanting the mill to go out on his watch. They believe he's sincere. But they also have watched orders disappear and jobs shrink.

"It's not Billy's fault if it does go under, if it's under his watch," Barbara Morgan said. "Because it's the economy that's causing the mill not to get the orders. They're going overseas."

Billy Ragsdale bears the burden of history. A Ragsdale has been in charge of Oakdale Cotton Mill since the 1880s.

"I'm fifth generation," said the 61-year-old Ragsdale, the mill's president. "I sure don't want it to go on my watch."

None of Ragsdale's three sons have expressed interest in running the mill when their father retires.

He expresses pride in them for becoming successes on their own.

Ragsdale is considering two futures for Oakdale, should accounts dry up.

He might sell it to a manufacturer not involved in textiles.

Or he might convert the mill and its village into a real estate development.

Ragsdale would rather not pursue either of these paths.

In addition to the burden of history, Ragsdale said he knows the impact closing the mill would have on its employees.

"This is a family," Ragsdale said. "It's not a faceless corporation. These people mean a lot to me, and I hope I mean a lot to them."

For now, Oakdale continues to operate as it has for 140 years.

But Ragsdale's a realist. The emotion in his voice and the slight slumping of his shoulders as he talks about Oakdale's future indicate his concern about his family's mill.

"We've endured world wars and the Great Depression," Ragsdale said. "I just figured this little old mill would stay right here and just move, that we'd go on. ... I never felt like we'd be in this shape."

Justin Cord Hayes wrote this report while a staff writer at the News & Record.

Watch the cloths racks at your nearest stores and see how many will be coming from Central America. I have found that many of the clothing items at my local Wal-Mart s come from that region. Wow, what a surprise. Oh well, I guess these people can always find jobs in the high tech world so long as they are willing to pay 20-40k to be re-educated only to find that the new jobs they were training for have been outsourced or given to those with H1B visas.

I wonder what will happen when Americans are out of jobs and all of the manufacturing has moved elsewhere. Perhaps money will just appear to the unemployed and they can magically buy all of the imported goods. I suppose the illegals with all of the aide they get from the government will have the purchasing power to sustain the globalist corporations.

Yeah JP--and our own government cooked up these Free Trade agreements. We have done this to ourselves--that's the sick part. Clinton started this ball rolling and when NAFTA got in trouble in Congress who came to Clinton's aid? Newt Gingrich! Then of course Bush jumped on the bandwagon shortly thereafter.

So we have a two party system? Do we really? Who do these people represent these days? Doesn't seem like it's Americans, that's for sure.

With Bush, Clinton and Gingrich working "for us," who the hell needs enemies? This is the craziest thing I've ever seen. Who do these people think will be buying these products when no Americans have jobs anymore?

Man just a few years after the fall of our big bad enemy the Soviet Union fell, who'd have thought America would start destroying itself?

Bob, NAFTA did get the ball rolling on the destruction of our country and helped to open the boarders for more illegals using our own hwy system. After 9/11, the boarders were ignored while more just walked over. Then there is CAFTA which will further allow foreign companies to being in its own work force from their countries. The clincher will be the FTAA which is expected to be voted on in the next couple of months. This is the short version of evens that is ripping our country apart and I am afraid that unless we have a massive influx of constitutional voices in congress and the senate that we are done for as a nation.