TNAG-0244-FCO40-280-Exports-of-textiles-from-Hong-Kong-to-USA-1970 — Page 123

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A survey of several of the firms in the area reveal the following, as reported in the Observer.

"Burlington Industries of Greensboro estimate that at

least 20 percent of its hourly workers in the two states are Negroes."

"Springs Mills of Fort Mill, South Carolina, report that its percentage of Negro wage earners has climbed from 7.2 percent in 1964 to better than 23 percent today."

"J.P. Stevens and Company reports a 13.4 percentage overall Negro employment rate but a figure closer to 30 percent at several of the seven plants built or acquired on the Costal Plains in recent years."

"A spokesman for Lowenstein's Pacific Columbia Mill Inc. in Columbia, South Carolina, reports that the percentage of Negroes there has climbed from less than 5 percent in 1965 to 25 percent today.

The Observer article also refers to a report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which stated:

"The textile mill industry nay serve as a training ground for Negroes in the future as it has for whites in the past."

"The industry teaches skills to workers who have previously engaged in unmechanized agricultural production, thus allowing them to participate in

an industrial society, and perhaps move on to higher paying jobs.

Location of Industry

There are an estimated 7,000 textile plants and over 25,000 apparel plants throughout the United States. Every state in the union has sone apparel production and approximately 47 states have textile plants. There is, however, some significant concentration of these industries in two different kinds of areas.

Much of the textile mill industry is located in small towns, largely in the southeast, where there are no other sources of employment. We call them one-company towns.

There are important segments of the apparel industry located in the major metropolitan areas, such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc., where we are confronted with major problems of the urban ghetto.

In a number of other areas, largely Appalachia, there are important concentration of the apparel industry. These are areas where substantial and persistent unemployment already exist. For example, there are towns such as these in Western Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. About 40 percent of manufacturing employment in the Wilkes-Barre and Scranton areas of Pennsylvania are in these industries. There are many more examples of the high concentration of employment in textiles and apparel in southern states, depressed areas, and urban centers.

/Employment

CONFIDENTIAL