Word: woolen
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Even though it is the biggest wool and worsted fabric maker in the world, American Woolen Co. has been badly scared by the textile depression. Its three-block-long mill in Lawrence, Mass., world's largest worsted mill, is running at about half speed, and its 21 other mills in New England are either running below capacity or have been shut down...
Last week American Woolen President Francis W. White stood up at a chamber of commerce dinner in Lawrence and sternly warned: "Our company is seriously considering moving all its operations out of New England...
White is a rockbound New Englander who still believes that "the best thing in New York is the 5 o'clock train to Boston." White also believes that "it's an economic crime for us to move out." But American Woolen may be forced to join the trek of New England mills south because "New England is at a great competitive disadvantage." Labor is cheaper in the South-up to 40? an hour less-but even more important "is the amount of work employees give for that wage." Man-hour productivity is so much greater in the South...
Although American Woolen netted $11.9 million in 1951, White said, "it would have been one of the worst years in our history" without Government contracts. High New England state taxes-three times as much as some Southern states-and unstable wool prices are factors, but it is the labor bill that really makes the difference between North and South. Last week, to back up his plan for cutting down the company's labor costs or quitting New England, White and 50 other textile manufacturers asked the Textile Workers' Union of America (C.I.O.) to negotiate new, lower-cost labor...
...said the T.W.U.A., and it has no objection to increasing output where better machinery is installed. T.W.U.A. pointed to an agreement signed a fortnight ago with Wyandotte Worsted Co.,under which individual work loads will be increased by close to 50% through the installation of improved machines. "If American Woolen's operations are inefficient," said T.W.U.A. Woolen-Worsted Division Chief John Chupka, "the blame could lie with management, not the union...