Milliken To Close Two Textile Plants

Saluda, SC, Oct. 14--Textile maker Milliken and Co. says it will close two plants and cut roughly 240 jobs--a major blow to a textile stalwart that's been in the forefront of trying to protect the nation's textile industry, according to the Greenville News. The company said it will close plants in Saluda and Union and places the blame squarely on international trade with China. "The lesson here is that no company is immune from the impact of China," Milliken spokesman Richard Dillard told The Greenville News for its online edition. The Saluda plant closure will leave about 140 people without jobs and about 120 people will be without work at the Union plant. The news has Union people shocked, said mayor Bruce Morgan. About 140 people will be cut in Saluda, about a mile outside of town, where the texturing of yarn for various uses in apparel began to wind down Monday. The plants, already cutting jobs, will close by the middle of next year, Dillard said. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1993, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says nearly 700,000 textile and apparel jobs have been lost--nearly than half the industry total. Dillard said the evaporation of those jobs is "the canary in the mine. We're the first red flag here, but if something is not done to stem free trade... other industries will follow." NAFTA now has become less of an issue, Dillard says. In August, imports from China set a record and have surpassed imports from Mexico to become this nation's top apparel supplier, Dillard said. Gov. Mark Sanford and State Commerce Secretary Bob Faith are heading to China this month to tell officials there that there's a political crisis brewing if it doesn't create reciprocal jobs in the U.S., and specifically South Carolina. At the same time, Sanford is pushing policies aimed at spending money on small business startups that will grow and remain loyal to the state. "By the time we start creating all these new jobs...we're going to be a third-world country ourselves," too impotent to compete in the global textile market. "We are not doing enough in the meantime to preserve" what remains of the textile and apparel industry in South Carolina, Dillard said.