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American-Made Underwear for Your American-Made Outerwear
Since I’ve been receiving a
fairly steady stream of emails in the past few months about how to buy
American underwear, and Sara Lee is shutting down the part of their
Asheboro, North Carolina plant that makes underwear cutting 200 jobs there,
I thought it would be a good topic for the Buy American Mention of the Week.
Although I don’t profess to know all the few-in-number brand names that make
underwear in the USA, Jockey is one brand that is definitely made in
American.
Jockey was recently in the
news announcing plans to close their plants in Kentucky, affecting 400
workers. Although some jobs will be lost to the Caribbean, Jockey will keep
manufacturing jobs in the USA by transferring some of the work to existing
factories in Georgia and North Carolina.
My recommendation that
American consumers buy Jockey brand underwear is certainly not a celebration
of the Kentucky workers losing their jobs, but it is a warning that Jockey
may be in the stepping-stone stages of transferring all production overseas
unless consumers purchase American-made underwear from the remaining
American factories.
History is littered with
examples of stepping-stone stages of consolidating production in existing
American factories before the ultimate decision is made to move completely
overseas. My Buy American Mention of the Week from December 22, 2001
http://www.howtobuyamerican.com/bamw/index.shtml
featured Dan River, Inc., which closed plants in South Carolina and Georgia
and moved the work to their Virginia and Tennessee plants. Dan River, Inc.
recently filed for bankruptcy and their future is now uncertain.
Let’s make sure this doesn’t
happen to Jockey so they don’t have to join their foreign-owned rival Fruit
of the Loom and transfer their entire production overseas. Fruit of the Loom
is now headquartered in the Cayman Islands for tax-avoidance purposes.
A few years ago, I purchased
some Jockey and Calvin Klein underwear from JC Penney. Both were made in USA
at the time, but I have not looked at Calvin Klein labels lately.
So next time you’re in a major
retail store, throw some American-made Jockeys in your shopping cart. You
know you’ll need some eventually anyhow. By buying them sooner rather than
later, you’ll increase the chances that when you need to purchase them
again, the label will still say “Made in USA.”
Roger Simmermaker, Author
How Americans Can Buy American
www.howtobuyamerican.com
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