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Back to School Special: School Notebooks Dumped in U.S. |
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Tens of millions of school kids will be heading back to class in a few weeks with brand-new notebooks, full of hundreds of lined pages waiting be filled. Are those notebooks being illegally dumped in the U.S. market?
Last week several members of the USW International Union (USW) who make those notebooks at the Alexandria, Pa., MeadWestavco paper plant joined a public hearing. The hearing examined charges that China, Indonesia and India are illegally dumping school notebooks on the U.S. market—with U.S. workers losing jobs as a result.
Last fall the Association of American School Paper Suppliers filed an anti-dumping case with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). It charges the trio of nations, where wages are low and worker exploitation commonplace, with illegally flooding the United States with the low-cost notebooks, the manufacture of which is subsidized by those governments.
Holly R. Hart, assistant director for the USW Legislative Department, told the ITC hearing:
As a consequence of imports, employment in the U.S. school notebook industry has declined significantly during the period of investigation, as did hours worked and total wages paid, and there’s the additional fact that our workers have been forced to give major wage and benefit concessions.
Mitch Heaton, president of USW Local 10-1442, which represents workers at the Alexandria plant, says:
My father, two brothers-in-law and my three kids have all worked at our MeadWestvaco paper converter plant, And among the 350 workers currently employed –there are many husbands, wives and young families who depend on this major employer in Alexandria, Penn. to sustain our community and economic lives.
The ITC is expected to decide the case in September. But the Bush administration’s track record on dealing with unfair trade and workers’ rights complaints doesn’t bode well. Earlier this month, the Bush administration rejected an AFL-CIO petition charging China with workers’ rights violations.
The petition charged China’s government systematically denies workers’ basic rights and prevents them from exercising internationally recognized workers’ rights, such as the freedom to form unions. It also documented how China’s failure to protect workers’ rights is an unfair trade practice that costs U.S. jobs.
A recent AFL-CIO-U.S. Business and Industry Council trade summit examined strategies for improving U.S. trade policies and help the global economy. Click here to read more.
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