Fruit of the Loom to close Jamestown plant, lay off all 600 workers

charlyv
As a consumer, you do the only thing that can possibly hurt them. Firmly commit to never buy their products again.
If there were any solidarity in this, it would be a totally different economic situation in this country.

The thing you maybe missing is; with the new lower cost, them underwear, tee shirts and whatnot will be competitive in the Asian and European markets. And with an American brand name, holy smackers. Take for example: Levis jeans made in Vietnam, they cost about $80 now in this country. American brand name sells, doesn't matter what country they are made in these days. We just have to get over it. Like Epiphone guitars made in China. People pay for the name.

Maybe he should move the plant to Arizona and fill it with 600 illegal Mexicans..it's the same as opening it in Honduras and you don't have to wait for the items to come before you ship them out..

andy1972
Maybe he should move the plant to Arizona and fill it with 600 illegal Mexicans..it's the same as opening it in Honduras and you don't have to wait for the items to come before you ship them out..

But don't US labor laws protect illegal Mexican labours in America?

macman
reply to post by BattleStarGal

 

What's the problem here?

A company is moving operations to a place where it costs less to make something than it does here in the US.

A company is supposed to make money, not be there to provide jobs.

a plantation owner in the old south was suppose to make money too. the slaves got their room and board, and food and water....what else did they need? it's these pesky American workers that won't work for 2 dollars an hour, they are the problem. geez, why are people so upset with the company?....this is what you are saying?

Mamatus
I just sent an email off to Fruit of the Loom letting them know they lost a loyal customer - Now while it won't save the jobs or change a darn thing at least a voice was heard.

Contact Fruit of the Loom

thanks for the contact info...just sent in my message,,,, seems like they closed another plant there in 1998...when are people going to realize that the wealthy are destroying this counties workforce, and as soon as the wealthy see signs that their own lifestyle might be threatened, by American worker outrage, they will move themselves and their money to another country.... they don't care about you, they don't care about the preservation of living standards in America, they only care about making more money, that's their only loyalty.

Warren just shows how much greed plays into our world. Poor old Warren needs to save a nickle.

UnBreakable

macman
reply to post by BattleStarGal

 

What's the problem here?

A company is moving operations to a place where it costs less to make something than it does here in the US.

A company is supposed to make money, not be there to provide jobs.

That's true. That's the American way nowadays. What's another 600 to the 50 million plus on the welfare/foodstamp dole. Hey, like Mittens said, corporations are people too.

I don't think people quite understand who is at fault here....

Companies make money, that is what they do. There are no emotions involved here, they either make money or fold. If we want companies to stay here then we need to make it better for them to pick US soil and not some other country. You all blame the companies, while not looking one bit at the reason why they move.

An example of "reshoring"..

For years, GE outsourced manufacturing of the water heater to a company in China. In 2009, GE did the math and, considering rising wages overseas as well as climbing transportation costs, decided to bring production back to the U.S.

It is all about the math, so the million dollar question is who can manipulate the math so that it is cost effective to do it in the states?

...drum roll please...... THE GOVERNMENT!!!

That is right, the Government can make or brake the decisions to whether Fruit of the Loom stays or goes. Think of the cost of moving and the cost of shipping and they still go over seas...Why?

Lets look at this a little deeper... I think the end conclusion is that our Government is inept at countering the policies and practices of other countries.

source

Why do U.S. companies relocate their plants overseas, thereby abolishing U.S. jobs?

(a) they can hire workers at very low wages (such as 30 cents an hour in China).
(b) the companies don't have to pay any employee benefits.
(c) they don't have to comply with safety and environmental regulations.
(d) they don't have to pay foreign taxes when they export their products back to us.

The correct answer is all of the above. The U.S. cannot require foreign governments to impose a minimum wage or safety regulations, or pay employee benefits. But the U.S. can and should do something about (d), the huge tax-rebate racket that lures U.S. companies to lay off American workers and set up shop in foreign countries.

Corporations located in the United States pay big U.S. corporate income and property taxes. It does a lot for their bottom line when they move to a foreign tax-free utopia.

Foreign governments do tax corporations, but if the company exports its products to the U.S. (or other countries), the foreign government rebates (forgives) the tax. That creates an irresistible magnet to attract U.S. companies to transfer their plants to a land where they can avoid most of both countries' taxes.

It's no wonder that DaimlerChrysler will soon start building cars in China to ship back and sell in the U.S. under Chrysler names such as Dodge and Jeep. This decision means that 11,000 manufacturing jobs and 2,000 white-collar jobs will be eliminated over the next 24 months.

The SUV assembly plant in Newark, Delaware will be closed. The Warren, Michigan truck plant and the St. Louis County, Missouri assembly plants will each lose one of two shifts.

The combination of avoiding U.S. corporate taxes and having Chinese taxes rebated (forgiven) will help DaimlerChrysler to sell new cars in the United States much cheaper than any it can manufacture in Detroit.

This racket should be prohibited because it is a huge subsidy, but world trade agreements have peculiarly defined subsidy to exclude tax rebates to exporters by calling it a rebate of the Value Added Tax (VAT). They get by with this subterfuge because that term is not understood by most Americans.

One of the many ways the United States is different from nearly all other countries is the system of taxation. The U.S. imposes taxes on our income (we pay taxes on what we earn), whereas 157 other countries impose taxes on consumption (they pay taxes on what they buy) and call that tax a VAT.

The VAT system not only operates as a bribe to induce U.S. plants to move overseas, but it is also a scheme to prevent U.S. products from being competitively sold in foreign countries. Here is how the racket works.

When a U.S. product, such as an automobile, arrives at another country's port, the foreign government slaps on a VAT import tax that is a percentage of the price of the U.S. product, the transportation cost to get it to the foreign country, and the tariff that the foreign country charges.

For 40 years, the U.S. has been signing trade agreements that were supposed to reduce or eliminate tariffs and thereby promote free trade. European countries sanctimoniously proclaim that they are reducing their tariffs, but in fact they replaced their tariffs with a steadily increasing VAT.

In 1968, the average tariff rate collected by European Union countries was 10.4%, and the average VAT rate was 13.44%, making a trade barrier against U.S. goods of 23.84%. By 2006, the average tariff rate declined to 4.4%, but the average VAT rate climbed to 19.36%, making the trade barrier against U.S. products 23.76%.

Foreign countries simply substituted high VAT rates for high tariff rates, thereby maintaining their border barriers against competition from U.S. goods. The result is that most foreign countries still have de facto tariffs against us that are as high or higher than their tariffs of 40 years ago.

Of course, this racket is flagrantly contrary to the announced goal of free-trade agreements. But don't look for any relief from the World Trade Organization because the WTO consistently rules against us.

Foreign governments' use of the VAT has inflicted U.S. industry with monumental costs, increasing every year, and reaching $327 billion in 2006. That's the sum of the VAT rebates paid to companies that ship foreign-made products to the U.S., plus the VAT taxes paid by U.S. companies for the privilege of selling their products in foreign countries.

The current system is not the result of the free market or free trade, but the failure of our government to expose and counter the dishonest practices of our trading competitors. After 40 years of tolerating this ripoff, we want to hear from national leaders who will demand a new strategy and a level playing field.

This has got to change to get companies back here and it starts with our Government. When we look at the current administration it really seems to be going the other way with more and more cost here at home and not doing a thing to stop the whole VAT scam.

jimmyx
a plantation owner in the old south was suppose to make money too. the slaves got their room and board, and food and water....what else did they need? it's these pesky American workers that won't work for 2 dollars an hour, they are the problem. geez, why are people so upset with the company?....this is what you are saying?

Shipping cost a lot, so does setting up manufacturing in other countries. It does not take much of a wage increase overseas to make it more profitable to just do it back here at home, but when you negate taxes too by manufacturing overseas this changes the whole ball game.

So they will be paying Honduras about 2 bucks an hour, and will not be required to provide any compensations such as health, retirement etc, but then we are only talking 600 workers so where is the huge savings coming from to counter the higher cost in shipping etc?

How does a company pay a living wage and provide everything that we typically expect? If Fruit of a Loom had to pay taxes on all that manufacturing then they might rethink their move, but they will be paying zero taxes AND reduce employee cost...

How can we blame a company that is handed this? In the end if you increase the total cost of manufacturing overseas then companies will come back, plain and simple...

andy1972
Maybe he should move the plant to Arizona and fill it with 600 illegal Mexicans..it's the same as opening it in Honduras and you don't have to wait for the items to come before you ship them out..

The biggest reason to move is to avoid taxes, the reduced employee cost is just icing on the cake. It would still be much cheaper to pay 2 bucks an hour in Honduras than 2 bucks an hour in Arizona, so wages is really a small part as to why they would move.

But then a 30k a year job actually cost a company 44k (and rising). So the company is really paying the bottom line of 23 per hour even though the employee only sees 15.5 per hour.

Night Star

tinner07

What's the problem here?

A company is moving operations to a place where it costs less to make something than it does here in the US.

A company is supposed to make money, not be there to provide jobs.

reply to post by macman

 

You are right. but it is our right to say FU to that company and spend our money elsewhere. Just as I am sure somebody out there would do your job for less money, why don't you offer up that suggestion to your superiors? all in the name of company profit

Back before I was disabled, the last job that I had closed down and moved South to save money. These people make billions of dollars and have companies all over the world. There is making a lot of money and then there is greed. So many lives were affected negatively and many suffered because of this.

Greed is what you get when you value money over people , that is clause in the "American way" that will be our undoing IMO.

musicismagic

andy1972
Maybe he should move the plant to Arizona and fill it with 600 illegal Mexicans..it's the same as opening it in Honduras and you don't have to wait for the items to come before you ship them out..

But don't US labor laws protect illegal Mexican labours in America?

This is sarcasm...right?

reply to post by Daedalus

You equate a company, making a profit, where it is the sole object of said company, to it saying "screw America" because it is trying to maximize profits???

Funny, as the first to push "screw America" seems to be the people that forced high costs on the company in the first place.

reply to post by Night Star

It is sad. But, this is what happens when overhead rises for a business. It looks to minimize the affect of the rise. Moving is one choice.

reply to post by tinner07


What superiors am I answering to again???
Or is that some halfassed attempt at being clever?


I guess you as the consumer should only have "rights", and not the business.

reply to post by Night Star

And I have yet to see where you or I were assigned the task of designating what is greed and what is not for anyone.

This is today's society. Where people think they get to delegate to others what they should do.

Question, can you guys do this and take a selfie at the same time??

reply to post by UnBreakable


And again, the by product of a company is jobs. The sole objective of a company is to make money.

And unemployment shouldn't be where it is. Thanks to the given economic environment, with a group of people in charge for what, 6 years or so?

reply to post by jjkenobi


Yes, and the landscape the company sits in is not only aggressive towards it, but costly as well.

Kind of like sitting in a bed of roses. Sure, it might look nice, but those thorns do hurt.

reply to post by xuenchen


If you like you underwear, you can keep it.
period

reply to post by jacobe001


It isn't my place to say what others should do. It is the freedom of the person and the company to act how they see fit.

There is the major difference between myself and the Progressives here.

I don't think I have the right to define items like this for others.

reply to post by framedragged


Another argument based on you getting to define for someone else what is greed and what isn't. Man you guys as a collective are about as elitist as it gets.

Call them out, by all means. I never said to stop.