THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603020286
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FLORENCE, S.C. LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Thomas Grossman is wondering how much longer he can stay in business producing children's clothes.
Orders from major retail outlets have dropped sharply in recent years, and Grossman is convinced that many of his clients are taking their business to plants in Mexico and Central America, where labor is inexpensive.
Sometimes he accepts clothing contracts that offer no profit to his company but at least keep his 30 employees busy.
Grossman is a lifelong Democrat. But business is becoming so tough that he's planning to support conservative commentator Pat Buchanan in today's South Carolina's Republican presidential primary.
``I can't compete with these foreign companies that can pay workers 25 cents an hour and send their goods to the United States duty-free,'' he said. ``Buchanan's making a lot of sense to me. He's the only one talking about protecting American business.''
Across the state in rural Greer, technician Ted Smith stood outside the gleaming BMW plant that employs 1,700 people and discussed why he's supporting Bob Dole. ``We're building cars here to send around the world,'' he said. ``That's free trade, and Bob Dole supports it.''
Grossman and Smith echo strong sentiments being heard throughout their state, and much of the South, this election year.
Grossman reflects the old South of textile mills and low-skilled labor. It is a fading voice in the Southern economy, crying out for protection from foreign competition. Smith represents the New South, whose future lies in high-tech plants, a skilled labor force and unimpeded trade.
The debate is likely to play a key role in South Carolina's election today and in primaries in six other Southern states later this month.
Buchanan is pledging to repeal free trade agreements and impose tariffs on many imported products. He has argued that his plan would restore stability to South Carolina's textile industry, which is losing an average of 3,000 jobs a year. Among Buchanan's key supporters is Roger Milliken, the state's biggest textile magnate.
The three other major Republican candidates - Dole, Lamar Alexander and Steve Forbes - are all free-traders. They point out that employment losses in the textile industry are more than offset by an average of 16,000 jobs a year being created in South Carolina by new businesses.
More than a third of those jobs have been created by foreign manufacturers such as BMW, Michelin and Fuji. Average pay at the plants is more than $28,000 a year, well above the state average of $22,500.
Buchanan argues that many textile workers are poorly educated and lack skills to make a transition to high-tech plants, a sentiment Grossman strongly shares. ``It's easy to say `retrain people,' but some of them just aren't smart enough,'' he said. ``How will these people support themselves at a time when the government is making welfare benefits harder and harder to come by?''
The free traders in South Carolina - led by former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. and current Gov. David A. Beasley - say that vast numbers of threatened and former textile workers are retrainable and successfully making transitions. They argue that Buchanan's policies would bring trade reprisals from other nations that would ultimately hurt the economy of South Carolina and the rest of the nation.
``If he continues with his America-first, nobody-else-to-trade-with policy, he'll bring us a recession at the least and probably a depression if he's elected,'' Campbell said recently of Buchanan's trade ideas.
Those arguments make sense to Gene Seiveno, who manufactures children's clothes in Florence and employs 70 workers. But so does Buchanan's stand, particularly when Seiveno considers his own dwindling profits and the fact that one of the state's largest clothing makers - Klare-Net Inc. - is scheduled to shut its factory in April and eliminate 550 jobs.
``I don't know what the solution is,'' said Seiveno, who is undecided about which candidate to support. ``I don't know what a profit is anymore, and I don't know how long I can stay in business. All I know is that I've got $500,000 invested in my business and if I shut my doors I won't be able to get 10 cents on the dollar.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Grossman
KEYWORDS: PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY by CNB