IBEW Wins a Round, But More Manufacturing Jobs Lost

After a six-month investigation, the U.S. Commerce Department has found that Chinese color television manufacturing companies have been dumping their product onto the U.S. market, using cutthroat tactics to put domestic producers at an extreme competitive disadvantage.

The late November announcement is good news for the IBEW, who along with the Industrial Division of the Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) and Five Rivers Electronic Innovations, a Tennessee-based color TV manufacturer, brought the suit against Chinese and Malaysian producers last year following a two-year pounding by domestic manufacturers of color televisions 25 inches and larger.

The Commerce Department imposed preliminary duties December 1 on the imported televisions ranging from 28 to 46 percent in an effort to even the playing field. The agency is expected to follow several months later with final duties. The Commerce Department ruling, which did not make any preliminary conclusions about Malaysia, accuses China of the predatory trade practice of selling televisions below cost or market value. Investigators also found surges in imports immediately before the antidumping duties were announced, so the Commerce Department made the duties retroactive up to 90 days before its November decision, thus covering those sets that flooded the markets before the holiday buying season.

"We want this preliminary decision to bring home to the American public the depth and scope of unfair trading tactics," said International President Edwin D. Hill. "This is not about the American consumer paying higher prices for televisions or any other dumped products. It's about ensuring that foreign manufacturers and countries play by the rules and not sell products here with the intent of destroying a viable American industry and increasing the ranks of the unemployed."

Investigators were swayed by evidence submitted by the unions and Five Rivers that demonstrated the staggering inroads made by foreign producers in the domestic TV market. In 2000, Americans purchased 210,000 Chinese and Malaysian televisions. In 2001, the number climbed to 371,000. But by 2002, Americans bought a whopping 2.7 million Chinese and Malaysian TVs, a 1,166 percent jump.

The preliminary nature of the Commerce Department ruling means that importers are required to post cash deposits or bonds. In April, the agency will issue its final decision on China as well as Malaysia. China's Ministry of Trade and Economic Cooperation has reportedly called the fees "discriminatory and unjust."

"Everything is moving along the way we'd hoped it would," said IBEW International Representative Troy Johnson. "The duties assessed were as much or in some cases more than we had hoped for."

But to IBEW members in the television manufacturing business who have been wounded by the foreign competition, relief may come too late.
The ongoing trade wars between the United States and Asia claimed 300 fresh victims at the Horseheads, New York, picture tube plant maker MT Picture Display in December.

"Everybody keeps cutting their prices," said Local 1632 Executive Board Chairman Bill Jackson, a production line worker who said the company making 32- and 36-inch picture tubes has dropped prices 20 percent to compete with lower-priced Chinese and Malaysian imports. "The company claims it's killing the competition, but the market is just not there."

And in November, Thomson Consumer Electronics, which until recently employed 2,500 members in two IBEW-represented plants in Indiana and Ohio, announced a joint venture with a TCL International Holdings, a growing Chinese television manufacturer that has been hit by the new duties. News of the merger did not bring hope to Circleville, Ohio, Local 2331 Business Manager Tony Blankenship. The venture does not include the glass and picture tubes produced in Circleville, leading IBEW members to speculate that Thomson is merely looking for a way around the newly announced trade barriers.

"We can't beat that 88 cents an hour wage in China," said Blankenship of one of the biggest producers of televisions. "This is one of those races to the bottom-whoever can get the product the cheapest wins."
Blankenship said in the past few months, his membership rolls have declined from more than 700 to 400. The Marion, Indiana, plant now employs between 500 and 600, he said. Ten years ago, the combined total was 5,000.

For the first time since the Circleville plant opened in 1970, the facility shut down for two and a half weeks during Christmas. "Just enough to take a week's pay from workers and deprive them of holiday pay," Blankenship said. "That put a hurting on everyone."

With the 300-worker layoff in Horseheads, Local 1632 is down to approximately 500 workers. Jackson and his wife have both worked at the plant for 12 years. "It's been steady work," Jackson said. This time, the couple dodged the layoff, because enough workers took advantage of a relatively generous early retirement package offered by the company, formerly Toshiba Display Services.

"It's rough to think about starting over after 12 years," he said. "But some people have been there for much longer."

Jackson said the relatively small town not far from the state's border with Pennsylvania doesn't have many prospects for alternative employment. Nearby Corning is getting ready to hire at a diesel plant but he said the plan is to rehire former workers first.

MT Picture Display, which produces picture tubes for JVC and Zenith televisions, has decided to ramp its plant down from four shifts to three, Jackson said. It reopened in January with a streamlined work force following its annual December shutdown.

In addition to falling profits, the company cited a difficult manufacturing climate in New York State. They say high taxes, environmental regulations and the cost of energy make operating in the state prohibitively expensive. The company announced its decision in November, two months after it laid off 21 salaried employees.

Commerce Department Flags China TV Dumping