TEXTILES!
Union Ads Bid Wilson Aid on HK Textiles
BY RICHARD ( NIZEMORE WASHINGTON. Four textile apparel unions planned advertisements to- day protesting low-wage textile and other exports from Hong Kong Hong to coincide with Prime Minis- ter Harold Wilson's visit here.
- The ads will run in Wash- ington, London and Hong Kong newspapers, a spokes-. man for the unions said. They are: Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Amer- ica; International Ladies' Garment Workers Union Textile Workers Union of America, and United Tex- tile Workers of America.
The purpose of the ads are to appeal to Wilson to "negotiate a solution to the problem of Hong Kong's low-wage exports" to the United States, The ads
charge that " Hong Kong sweatshops imperil Amer- ican jobs."
A State Department spokesman said he had no indication that Hong Kong textiles would be brought up in talks Wilson will have with Secretary of State William P. Rogers this week But he did not rule out discussion of the problem in a wide-ranging agenda.
In addition to the ads, to be carried in the Wash- ington Post, The Man- chester Guardian and The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong, the unions are conducting informa- tional picketing campaigns.
One target is the British House, a retail outlet in New York where 15 ACW pro- testers marched Monday and plan to picket again, today.
The unions ran similar ads
Ina fall when Japanese · Primo Minister Eisaku Salo visited the United States. They also picketed such stores as Macy's in New York, Marshall Field in Chicaga and what a union spokesman called "other blue ribbon stores," in large cities.
State Department
has
The long had a policy of opposing boycotts of goods from other nations unless such a decision is made by official United States policy makers. But the picket- ing will not amount to a boy- cott. It will just provide informa- tion to shoppers, a spokesman said.
It will probably be as long as three months before the con- tinuing United States-Japan ne- gotiations on textiles will finally be wrapped up, Fairchild News Service learned. But a solution will be forthcoming, Japanese sources said.
United States officials have said all along that any solution with Japan on a bilateral basis would necessarily mean similar solutions with other large tex- tile exporting nations to the United States.
It is expected that the textile question will be wrapped up be- fore the House Ways and Means Committee takes up President Nixon's trade policy proposal.
The statement of the four textile unions charges that "Honk Kong manufacturers, pay- ing wages of 27 cents an hour, are flooding the American mar-. ket with textiles and garments of every description."
The unions expressed surprise that the British Labor Govern- ment had falled to negotiate an agreement on a matter of such "serious consequence.”
The statement added that, in the continued absence of an agreement, American unions would be forced to "seek legisla. tion and to take direct action" to enlist the support of the American
people against the Hong Kong "sweatshop" prod- ucts.
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DAILY NEWS RECORD, TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 1970
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