Hanes closing deals hard blow

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: September 24, 2008

It’s hard to fathom a larger economic crisis than the current tumult facing our financial institutions.
Greed, mismanagement and quite possibly criminal activity have fueled the current economic meltdown, and the Bush administration and Congress are working on a government bailout that could cost taxpayers as much as $700 billion. Even that comes without a guarantee of financial stability, which only heightens Americans’ collective anxiety. But we try to keep moving forward, focusing on our families and staying true to our communities.
Wednesday morning, many of us awoke to news that Hanesbrands Inc. will close nine plants in five countries – including four in North Carolina -and cut about 12 percent of its work force as it restructures to cut costs. We braced for the blow, but it staggered us nevertheless.
Two plants in Eden will close by summer 2009, and 720 jobs will be lost. These are our neighbors, our friends. They’ll join the ranks of the unemployed, a number that is growing by the day. American textiles are all but gone, but you would be hard pressed to identify an industry that isn’t stressed or at the very least shaking in anticipation of the latest numbers from Wall Street.
The plant closings, the Winston-Salem Journal reported, represent the third-largest job cut in recent memory in Rockingham County, eclipsed only by the elimination of 840 jobs by Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. in August 1995 and 750 jobs by Fieldcrest Cannon Inc. in December 1996, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.
Wednesday’s announcement surprised Eden and county officials, who had no knowledge of the planned closings.
“There was no courtesy call, no e-mail, no nothing,” Eden City Manager Brad Corcoran said. “Obviously that wasn’t a concern for them.”
In a statement, Gerald Evans, Hanesbrands’ president and chief global supply-chain officer, said the moves were made so the company can remain competitive in a global market and, though he regrets the layoffs, “our supply chain globalization is necessary to strengthen our overall company and keep us competitive around the world.”
The company is also closing plants in Central America and is effectively tripling its workforce in Asia by year’s end.
Tony Plath is a finance professor at UNC Charlotte. In an interview with the Journal’s Richard Craver, he said the U.S. is but one country affected by globalization, though “because of our relatively high cost of labor and cost of living, we do feel its effects more acutely than other regions of the world.”
Rockingham County will no doubt recover from this latest round of layoffs and plant closings, but it’s getting tougher and more painful to pull us off the mat. The bickering among the county and its towns, as well as Rockingham’s inherent provincialism, must end now. We need to work together to move forward in promoting our county and working in the best interests of all residents. We must face the economic realities together. After all, it’s impossible to compete in a global economy when people can’t see beyond the separate borders of Reidsville, Eden, Madison or Mayodan.