The company’s threats are generating a good deal of discussion among textile workers in a region in which the crisis-struck industry plays a dominant role. Workers in the plant scored a victory for all working people four years ago when they won representation by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). The union-organizing fight went back 25 years. In the year 2000 they won a contract.

Those struggles had achieved important gains, from protection against arbitrary firings, to pay and benefit increases and paid sick days.  
 
Bankruptcy in 2002
Pillowtex, formerly Fieldcrest Cannon, claims to have lost more than $27 million dollars since May 2002, when the company emerged from bankruptcy protection. Company officials say that if they cannot find a buyer, they face alternatives of “restructuring”—a code word for layoffs, speedup, and wage cuts—and of possibly reentering bankruptcy proceedings.

Two years ago the company accompanied its declaration of bankruptcy with the closure of several mills and the layoffs of thousands of workers. In the period since, the Pillowtex bosses have slashed wages and reorganized whole departments to produce the same number of commodities or more with fewer workers. Many workers have seen their wages drop anywhere from $2 to $5 an hour, and have been forced to pay more for medical insurance. The company has also imposed short workweeks and one week’s layoff a month on many workers.

It has also stepped up its use of temporary workers. At Plant 6 in Concord, these workers earn $5.25 an hour doing jobs that were at least at a $9.50 an hour wage scale under the union contract, and reached as much as $15 an hour for those earning piece rate.  
 
More mill closings
Pillowtex is not the only mill claiming financial problems. The owners of the Westpoint Stevens textile mills—depicted in the 1979 movie “Norma Rae,” when it was J.P. Stevens—say they will close the Roanoke Rapids towel-making complex this summer. Three hundred and fifty workers will lose their jobs.

In the late 1960s and early 70s the plant was the arena for a major union-organizing fight. After an 11-year struggle the workers prevailed in 1974, scoring the first major union victory in the South in years. It took six more years before the union forced the company to sign a contract.

Among Pillowtex’s potential buyers is Springs Industries, the country’s largest manufacturer of sheets and towels.

On May 7 UNITE organized a rally to back preserving jobs at the plants through a supposedly more favorable buyout of Pillowtex.

At the rally and press conference union officials stated that Springs was interested only in Pillowtex customers and brand names like Fieldcrest, Cannon, and Royal Velvet, and would close the remaining plants.

Several hundred workers from Pillowtex plants in the North Carolina towns of Kannapolis, Concord, China Grove, and Eden attended the event. It was announced prior to the rally that Pillowtex and Springs had agreed to end an exclusivity agreement and would allow other bids.  
 
Workers react to ‘better buyer’ plan
Carolyn Johnson Bell, an operator in the pillowcase department and a union supporter, told the Militant that no matter who buys the plant, “I don’t think they should come and take away from us. They shouldn’t get rich off of us.”

Donna Loan, who participated in the original fight to bring in the union and participated in the May 7 rally, said she agrees with the union attempt to find a “better” buyer even if it means taking a wage cut. “I need the medical benefits,” she said. “It’s better to have a job than not to have one.”

Loan is skeptical about the company’s claims of bankruptcy, given the fact that the company paid more than $1.7 million each to three top executives, none of whom are still with Pillowtex. “They have money for that,” Loan notes. “But no money for us.”

Seth Galinsky and Willie Cotton, who contributed to this article, work at Pillowtex Plant 6 in Concord and are members of UNITE Local 1506.
 
 
Related article:
Confront menace of joblessness  
 
 
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