Aderholt Authors Bill To Protect Textile Jobs In North Alabama
Contact: Darrell "DJ" Jordan
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ADERHOLT AUTHORS BILL TO PROTECT TEXTILE JOBS IN NORTH ALABAMA
Winston County Company Could Be Hurt By Unfair Trade Policy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Robert Aderholt (AL-04) authored and submitted a bill in the House of Representatives last night that would correct trade rules to help the domestic textile manufacturing industry. The legislation, entitled the “Save U.S. Manufacturing and Jobs Act” (H.R. 5940), would remove preferential trade treatment for importing certain sleeping bags – a textile product being produced by a north Alabama manufacturing company called Exxel Outdoors, Inc., located in Haleyville.
“It is very important that sleeping bags be removed from eligibility for duty-free treatment under GSP. This will keep jobs in America and make sure that companies like Exxel Outdoors, Inc. are able to operate on an even playing field with international industries who aren’t subject to the same taxes,” said Congressman Aderholt. “During a time of record unemployment, it is important that we do more to save jobs in north Alabama, including ensuring that our trade policy is fair for local manufacturing companies. Sleeping bags should have never been included in this exemption list since they are textiles and this bill corrects that matter. ”
"We are very grateful to Congressman Aderholt for fighting to create more American jobs," remarked Exxel's CEO Harry Kazazian. "If legislators are serious about creating American jobs, then they need to correct this injustice, to make sure that no foreign country has an unfair advantage over American workers. That is not what the GSP was intended for."
The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is a system of trade rules designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential duty-free entry for about 4,800 products from over 130 designated beneficiary countries and territories. To protect the domestic industry, textiles are not included in GSP. However, there is a loophole in the law and sleeping bags are therefore not considered a textile under GSP, making them eligible to receive duty-free benefits from developing countries.
A bill that was signed into law in December 2009 (H.R. 4284) extended GSP rules by one year. These duty-free benefits have encouraged some companies to move their operations to countries like Bangladesh in order to take advantage of lower operating costs and unfair trade rules. This policy could cause companies like Exxel Outdoors, Inc. to lose business.
On December 10, 2009, Congressman Aderholt wrote a letter to President Obama’s top trade officials, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Trade Representative Ron Kirk, requesting that the U.S. eliminate sleeping bags from the list of GSP eligible products. In June of this year, the Trade Representative ruled that the U.S. Government would not change its trade rules. Therefore, Congressman Aderholt decided to draft this legislation to address the issue.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) and Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) have signd onto the bill as cosponsors.
Other suppliers of sleeping bags and raw materials manufacturing companies that would benefit from this bill are Martex Fiber in South Carolina, Stein Fibers in North Carolina, Equinox in Pennsylvania, Smurfit-Stone in Mississippi, Bertner Thread in New York and Royal Slide in New Jersey, among others.
Exxel Outdoors, Inc. produces over 2 million sleeping bags per year in Haleyville, accounting for about 30 percent of the U.S. sleeping bag market. Harry Kazazian purchased the factory when it was almost shut down in 2000, then hired back its employees to re-open. Exxel began moving its sleeping bag production operations from China to Alabama in 2005, and now produces 80% of its bags in Alabama. It also moved some operations from Mexico to Haleyville, proving that U.S. workers can compete in the global market. The company hopes to eventually bring all production operations to Haleyville.
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