Executives from the troubled N.C. textile industry gathered for a panel discussion in Whitley Auditorium Thursday, Jan. 15 to examine the changes in their business, both domestically and globally. Details...
Sponsored by the Love School of Business, the panel was moderated by Nancy Cassill, a professor in the College of Textiles at N.C. State University. Panel members included Mike Gannaway, former CEO of Pillowtex; Sid Smith, former CEO of the Hosiery Association in Charlotte; John Maynard, president of Burlington-based Tower Mills, Inc.; and Carl Wallace, vice president and general counsel at Glen Raven Mills, Inc.
Gannaway’s Pillowtex announced 5,500 layoffs affecting North Carolina workers in August. He said the changing face of the global marketplace is forcing companies such as his to make these kinds of decisions.
“Consumers are the fundamental drivers of the economy,” Gannaway said. “Time and again, consumers have shown us that if they can buy a towel of equal quality for $7 rather than $10, they will buy the $7 towel, regardless of where it’s made. When consumers vote with their dollars, that is the ultimate truth.”
Wallace compared the average $15 U.S. textile worker’s wage to the 75-cent wage paid in Beijing.
“The U.S. became disadvantaged economically after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989,” Wallace said. “The cost of doing business went up.” Wallace said the U.S. must take advantage of its strengths, including its location in the best market in the world, and its ability to improve quality.
Gannaway said he believes the textile business “is still alive in America, but it is going to look different.” Smith agreed, telling the audience that the American textile business will have to focus its efforts on new and evolving technologies, such as medical textiles and advanced use of textiles in construction.
“The race to free trade is on,” Smith said. “We’ve got to get ready for free trade and globalization. It’s here to stay.”