Trying to save the furniture industry

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Christensen: Trying to save the furniture industry

By Rob Christensen
919-829-4532
[e-mail]
January 24, 2015

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{Wanda Perdue, a 58-year old laid-off furniture worker in Stanleytown, Va.}, is collateral damage in the furniture wars that {Beth} Macy, a reporter for the Roanoke Times, writes about in her recent excellent book, "Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local; and Helped Save an American Town."

The protagonist is John Bassett III, a third-generation furniture man, who lives in Roaring Gap, N.C., and his determined effort to keep the 700 jobs in his Vaughn-Bassett bedroom furniture plant in the town of Galax, Va., despite a flood of imports. ... But the book also uses a wider lens to examine the furniture wars and the devastating effect of globalization on Appalachia. ... At its height during the 1960s, 23 of the nation's 30 largest furniture manufacturers were located along a 150-mile furniture belt from Bassett, Va., to Lenoir.
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The first threat to Southern furniture manufacturing occurred in the form of Larry Moh, an American-educated Chinese native living in Taiwan. In 1975, he opened a factory on two floors in Hong Kong, paying his workers 76 cents per hour compared with the $6.36 that American furniture workers were earning. ... So began a flood, as American manufacturers began moving their manufacturing operations overseas to take advantage of the cheap labor. Soon, foreign companies began selling furniture directly to retailers.
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But for Bassett, saving one factory and one town was personal. ... "This is not like picking up a telephone from your office on Wall Street and saying, 'Close factory number 36 down in Alabama,'" Bassett said. "These are people we look in the eye every day." ... Workers such as Wanda Perdue, who worked for Stanley Furniture for 37 years, were not so fortunate. She had not been able to find full-time work after three years. Globalization had not made the world a better place for her.

New York Times best-selling “Factory Man”

I first wrote a feature on him for The Roanoke Times as part of a series on the impact of globalization in southside and southwest Virginia. More than 19,000 textile and furniture factory workers lost their jobs in Henry County and Martinsville, but two hours away in Galax, John Bassett fought back to keep his 700 factory workers employed.