International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers

Jim Flickinger - President     

Tony Davis - Vice President

Donny Irvin - Secretary/Treasurer 

Kenneth Henley - General Counsel 

"Workers Representing DuPont, Bemis and INVISTA Workers"

U.S. - KOREA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

Support The Textile Workers By Opposing This Legislation - Sign The On-Line Petition

February 27, 2011

To:  All IBDW Members and ALL Employees at DuPont and INVISTA Manufacturing Facilities:

It has just come to my attention that our Congress will soon be voting on Trade Legislation that could be DEVASTATING to the textile industry.

The pending legislation is the Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS –FTA) and Congress may vote on it as early as next month.  So there is not much time to let our voices be heard!

WHAT IS THE KOREA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT?

The United States and the Republic of Korea signed the United States – Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS – FTA) on June 30, 2007.  If approved, the Agreement could be the final chapter to the struggling U.S. textile industry.

Under the FTA, nearly 95 percent of all bilateral trade in consumer and industrial products would become duty free within 3-years, with most remaining tariffs being eliminated within 10-years.

In June of 2007, the Bush Administration was in danger of losing trade promotion authority for the KORUS agreement and moved quickly to conclude negotiations with Korea. In order to do so, several decisions were made by the Bush Administration on textiles that favored the Korean textile industry and hurt U.S. textile producers.  Specifically, those decisions open up the U.S. market to a massive one-way surge of textile products from Korea, including products that are of critical importance to the U.S. military, as well as imports of illegal Chinese textile and apparel products. Based on the FTA language, between 9,300 and 12,300 direct textile and apparel jobs will be lost, with an additional 30,000 indirect jobs also being lost!

Since the signing, the FTA has not been sent to Congress because the Bush or Obama Administrations didn’t have the needed vote for passage.  Now the Obama Administration has decided to push for the vote.  

According to a spokesperson for the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), “The executive branch of our government basically said on textiles ‘we don’t care, you are going to be a loser in this agreement.’”

Regarding specific textile products, South Korea is the largest exporter to the United States of combed cotton yarn, polyester flat yarn, non-textured filament fabric and polyester filament fabric.  It is the second largest exporter to the United States of knit fabric, specialty fabric, sheeting fabric, non-textured filament fabric, artificial filament fabric, polyester industrial yarn and polyester tire cord fabric.  Overall, Korea exported nearly $600 million in textile products to the United States last year alone.

Then consider how China will benefit from this agreement.  China is by far the largest overall exporter of textile products to the United States and has used Korea for decades as an illegal transshipment point.  With its weak rules and lax enforcement, KORUS will enable China to illegally ship textile products to the U.S. duty-free.  In the end, China will win big and the U.S. textile workers will lose if this agreement is passed.

This is a travesty!  How can our government forge such a deal with a foreign government that will hasten the demise of an entire industry? 

I say enough is enough!  If the textile industry fails, it should not be because of poor legislation!

While this Legislation will directly impact the textile manufacturing plants at INVISTA and DuPont, it can have an indirect impact on other plants that supply ingredients to these plants.  We must all show our support for the textile workers by signing the attached petition.

Collectively, we must all act as one!

Jim Flickinger

Sign Petition, Click On The Following Link:

KORUS - FTA Petition

Send mail to ibdw.jim@comcast.net with questions or comments about this web site.