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Isn't This A Rerun?

Today the same story is playing out, this time between whats left of the American color television manufacturing industry and Chinese and Malaysian producers that have flooded the retail market with cheaper imports. Prices are so low, even the Mexican-made TVs are getting priced out.

"This is like a bad made-for-television movie," said IBEW President Edwin D. Hill. "The good guys work hard and play by the rules while the bad guys disregard the law, put the good guys out of business and get rich. Well, this is not all she wrote. Our members deserve a different ending."

The IBEW is party to a petition filed with the U.S. government that formally accuses China and Malaysia of the unfair trade practice of "dumping," or selling color televisions for less than the cost of making them. Simple economics demonstrates that dumping will eventually wipe out the competition and then allow predatory producers to raise prices at will. In the case of televisions, U.S. manufacturers are forced to lower prices in an attempt to maintain market shareand try to survive.

The petitioners are seeking an extra import duty on televisions from China and Malaysia to bring prices closer to the normal value. Today they are one step closer to this goal. On June 16, the International Trade Commission (ITC) made a preliminary decision that the U.S. industry was being injured.

One witness in a May ITC hearing in Washington, D.C., explained in sharp terms the inroads these televisions have made on the American market. In 2000, Americans bought 210,000 color televisions made in China and Malaysia and sold under the brand names of Apex, Sansui and others (see sidebar). By 2002, they had purchased 2.7 million, more than a 10-fold increase. The anti-union department store Wal-Mart is one of the largest domestic retailers hawking these imports.

And what hurts the American manufacturer hurts the American worker, IBEW International Representative Troy Johnson said at the ITC hearing. "As unfairly traded imports from China and Malaysia surge into the marketplace, U.S. workers will be out of jobs, replaced by Chinese and Malaysian workers," he said, citing an example of the direct impact these imports are having on IBEW jobs. On November 14, 2002, Sharp shut down television production in its IBEW-represented Memphis, Tennessee, plant laying off 500 workers. And in January, uncertainty in the industry forced temporary layoffs for IBEW members making top-model flat screen Toshiba televisions. Some have been recalled but many have chosen not to return to what is no longer steady employment at the Lebanon, Tennessee plant.

Fifteen years ago, a decade-long fight against television manufacturers in other countries ended when the ITC ruled on behalf of the domestic industry. By then, the American producers had adapted, conceding the smaller TV market while aggressively pursuing the larger sized television market as those units were becoming popular. With the help of a highly skilled work force and increasing automation, domestic plants had become leaner, achieving productivity gains. But now, many of those gains are coming undone by the unfair trade practices of global companies tapping the unlimited supply of Chinese and Malaysian workers.

Unions, Manufacturer
Seek Remedy

More than 4,000 workers, who are both union members and unrepresented workers, produce a wide range of television models in the United States. The ITC filing does not represent all of them, but their employers would benefit from a favorable outcome.

On May 2, the IBEW, the Industrial Division of the Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) and Tennessee-based producer Five Rivers Electronic Innovations asked the ITC and the U.S. Department of Commerce to impose antidumping duties on large and very large screen25 inches or moreTVs from China and Malaysia. The ITCs role is to determine whether the U.S. television industry is being injured by dumped imports; the Commerce Department probes whether the foreign producers are selling the product for less than fair value in the United States. The dual-track investigations are expected to take approximately one year.

Although Five Rivers is not well known, the products it manufactures at its Greeneville, Tennessee, plant are household names. Seven hundred IUE-CWA workers turn out televisions with brand names such as Philips and Samsung at the only American-owned television factory left in the U.S. But if the predatory trade practices of China and Malaysia are allowed to continue, Five Rivers will soon be out of business too.

Tom Hopson, president and CEO of Five Rivers, said his customers have been pleading with him to revise existing agreements with companies whose brands his plant manufactures by contract. "They tell us the prices we agreed to will not compete in the marketplace. The price pressures are too great."