The Making Of America's Denim

This is copied and pasted from an article that was done on CNN. I loved it. You can see how this relates to your own jobs. Buy American and help Americans keep working.

Trion, Georgia (CNN) -- Christopher Wolfe has a Tough As Nails, I Love America attitude. His pride swells along with his tattooed biceps. He's a dying breed, a blue-collar American working on a product as American as apple pie.

Blue jeans.

"This is our lifeline," Wolfe says.

Those jeans you squeezed into this morning? It's likely they began right here at Mount Vernon Mills, one of the last functioning cotton mills in America and the nation's No. 1 producer of denim.

In a tiny enclave of northwest Georgia, Wolfe and 1,200 of his colleagues churn out enough denim per week for 800,000 pairs of blue jeans.

Most U.S. mills shut down years ago, unable to compete with cheap overseas labor. And in another sign of the global economy, the fabric woven here is rarely sent to American plants to be turned into jeans. Instead, the fabric is shipped mostly to factories in Mexico. The jeans then carry labels that read "Made in Mexico of U.S. fabric."

Blame NAFTA. Blame outsourcing. Blame corporate greed for the selling out of America's manufacturing soul.

"I'd rather see people over here work, instead of struggling -- instead of giving somebody in another country a chance to make money that [Americans] should be making," says Wolfe, 31.

He's got a scar across his forehead, a shaved head and goatee. Like a pair of well-worn blue jeans, he's rough and tough.

Some workers here are second- and third-generation employees, following in the footsteps of their fathers, mothers and grandparents. Wolfe's dad and brother work at the mill.

You can see the pride in their faces: Made in U.S.A., baby. "We contribute a lot to America," Wolfe says with a smile.

He's a father of four young daughters. He makes about $9 an hour. He toils for them, for his little girls, so they can have a better a life.

"This mill here," he says, "it feeds my family."

It has been in existence since 1845, when slaves handpicked cotton in the South. Back then, mill workers spun the cotton into fabric and shipped it to factories in the North.

It's said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman came through Trion, Georgia, during the Civil War and decided not to burn the factory down. The reason remains town lore. Some speculate the Union general might've been treated to the charms of Southern hospitality at the local hotel (wink, wink).

What's a good Southern tale without -- dare we say it? -- some yarn spinning.

"Boss Man" who fights for workers

Inside, you can't help but marvel at the scene around you. Hundreds of spools of thread churn all at once, with computer-like precision. There's a million-square-feet of manufacturing space, much of it Canadian rock maple hardwood floors. It's clean with a brilliant shine. Thread shoots every which way, as if Spider-Man came through.

We make the Wrangler rodeo cowboy jeans that all the rodeo guys still wear.
--Don Henderson

The sweet, distinct smell of cotton permeates the mill -- like that of nature in a hardwood forest, with the faint hint of a wet Labrador retriever.

When you walk through with general manager Don Henderson, the workers pause. They glance at "Boss Man". Many stroll over to shake his hand. How you doing? Everything, OK?

Henderson is one reason this place is still in business, on American soil. He has an aww-shucks attitude. He'll tell you it's those men and women out there on the floor that keep it going. He's got pride in the plant, in his workers and in his family.

His father worked for 39 years in the spinning department. His brother retired from the plant after 42 years, having started when he was 16 and eventually making his way into management.

"If I had the ultimate say-so, we would be right here for the next 100 years," says Henderson, 64, who has worked in the plant for 40 years.

While the nation's manufacturing base has shrunk, Mount Vernon Mills is a rare exception. The tiny town of Trion -- pronounced Try-On, as in "our residents always 'try on,'" 78-year-old Mayor Benny Perry says -- has a staggeringly large annual budget for such a small town. Its $12 million, mostly from taxes the mill pays, provides a state-of-the-art public school, park space and athletic fields.

If the mill shuttered, "it would destroy the town," Perry says.

In its heydey, the mill had 5,000 workers in the 1940s and 1950s. The company owned everything in town back then, from the tiny mill houses that surround the plant to the town hospital where Henderson and many of his co-workers were born.

As a result, Trion doesn't have a quaint town square. The mill is the centerpiece.

About two years ago, when the nation's recession hit hard, the plant had to layoff about 200 workers. "It was awful," Henderson says.

To save as many jobs as possible and to maximize efficiency, the plant switched to two, 12-hour shifts. That's down from three shifts, five days a week.

The denim for jeans goes to companies as wide-ranging as Wal-Mart to JCPenney to Dickies to Polo and other high-priced brands. Henderson's most proud of the mill's ties to cowboys.

"We make the Wrangler rodeo cowboy jeans that all the rodeo guys still wear," he says. "We make the fabric right here and have been for -- gosh -- 30 years."

Henderson holds up one roll of distressed fabric that's nearly ready to be shipped. It's denim that once was used for lower-end clothing. But yuppies like the look. Henderson chuckles and shakes his head.

Martha Teague is 63 and has worked in the mill for the past 35 years. She says other company towns had bosses that sold them out, that cared more about the dollar than its people.

"It just gives me a good feeling to be a part of that family of Mount Vernon Mills," says Teague, who has a son working at the plant.

"It has educated my children and gives us a house and everything we have really."

Wolfe wheels 13,000 yards of yarn into the dimly lit "ballroom." It's placed among a heap of others. "We're lucky to have what we got. Other small towns, they don't have that."

He turns and walks away in the orange glow of the ballroom.

You want to know a secret? A $12 pair of jeans often comes from the same roll of denim as a $150 designer pair.

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When are we going to understand the connections of the goods we buy to the people that MAKE the goods we buy? They all have families. THEY in turn, buy things. So, do you want to support families in America or families in China?

This is applicable to guitars and amp and everything we, as consumers, buy with our hard earned money.

Use your head. The job you save may be YOUR job.

How Much To Buy Justice?

There was a guy on a forum that I belong to who was telling a story about a certain nationwide music store.

He had put a guitar on layaway. His layaway was up on 11/10/09. So he goes in to make another payment on his guitar and when he gets there they tell him that his guitar has been sold to someone else.

You see, they had made a mistake. They thought the layaway deadline was 10/11/09 so when a customer wanted to buy that guitar they sold it to him.

Now, this just reeks of bullshit to me. First, they had the receipt which would have laid out all of the terms and conditions of the layaway. It would have had the date that the layaway was over and all they needed was a calendar to know that the guy still had time left to pay off the guitar. Second, they could have called the guy and told him that he needed to pay off his guitar that night or another customer was going to buy that guitar. He would have reminded them that he still had time and he would still have had the guitar.

A guy bonds with a guitar. Some guitars that feel great to me might not feel great to you. He had shopped until he found the guitar that felt right to him. Now that store had just sold his guitar AND was going to keep his money.

There are statutes for every state of the union. They are the laws and are available to anyone who wants to see them. There are statutes for everything including consumer protection. Colorado, for example, has a statute that says that a layaway is a binding contract and that the full terms and conditions of the layaway have to be disclosed on a contract or receipt. Plus, if he went back there to pay off his guitar and they told him it was gone and they told him they had another guitar and it only cost $100 more for him to get that one then it would be a "bait and switch" situation.

There are stiff penalties in Colorado for jerking around a consumer. The law USED to say that the remedy for such a case would be three times the amount of damages or $500, whichever was greater PLUS $2,000 for the infraction PLUS $2,000 for doing it to the individual. The problem is that the law has no "teeth". What that means is that the District Attorney is unlikely to prosecute anyone for a single infraction. They won't prosecute because there isn't enough money to justify the legal expense of going after the culprit. They would tell you it is a civil case. That means that the guy would have to spend his own money to hire an attorney to go after that music store.

He COULD take them to court on his own. Yeah, right. Do you know how difficult it is to do something like that? Do you know the paperwork that has to be filed just to get the case heard? One mistake and the whole thing gets tossed out.

It takes money to get justice. Even then you're not guaranteed to get justice. Most attorneys that I've run across couldn't give a shit if they win or lose the case. They get paid regardless. You have to sign an agreement that basically says that there is no assurance that they are going to win the case and they want their money up front or they don't take the case.

WTF? What if the rest of the world worked on that principle...

You go to a restaurant. The waiter takes your order. Then he passes you a contract that says you may or may not get your food but he wants the money for the meal up front. The plumber says he might or might not be able to fix the leak but he wants to be paid in advance for the job.

It gets worse. The longer the lawyer can string out the court case the more money he makes. Phone calls...1/4 of his hourly rate, minimum. Emails...cha-ching. Types you a form letter...$50 bucks or more. Goes to court and gets a continuance... that just cost you a grand.

Wouldn't you think a guy who had been an attorney for twenty years could hear what you had to say about your case, evaluate the evidence and give you a pretty good ballpark figure on how much it's gonna cost to put this all behind you? Nope. They can't even tell you if they can win it. Oh they make you THINK they can win it. Would you hire an attorney that listened to what you had to say and said "Uh, you're gonna lose this case." No, I wouldn't either.

Do you think OJ was acquitted because someone else killed Nichole and Ron? Uh-uh. He had Johnny Cochran and a shitload of money. Trust me...if it were YOU in OJ's place, the gloves would have fit. In fact, your attorney wouldn't have even thought to QUESTION if the gloves fit.

It's nothing to do with justice or right and wrong. It's about money. M-O-N-E-Y. Make no mistake about it. The entire court system is designed to separate YOU from your hard earned cash. Why do you think the law is so complicated? Do you think it really HAS to be hard to understand what's fair? Of course not.

OK. Here's how to remedy the situation, get what you want and make sure they don't do it again.

First, read the law. Second, print and highlight the relevant part. Now, go to that music store and ask to speak with the manager. Explain what happened to him and why you're upset. Now show him what you've printed and highlighted. Explain to him that you really don't want the hassle of getting an attorney and going to court and getting the music store's corporate office involved. BUT, what the store did was wrong and violated the law even if it was unintentional and you're going to give the manager the chance to make things right.

Ask the manager to sell you a better quality guitar for the price of the original guitar (the original guitar was a Studio model and you should get a Standard model). Believe me, the manager can do that and make up the money another way. He does NOT want attorneys, courts cases or corporate scrutiny. He KNOWS they did wrong because they probably do that all the time. He's going to want to make you go away as fast as possible. He doesn't want to gamble that you're bluffing about ANY of it.

If you're tactful and diplomatic, you're gonna walk out that store with a better guitar than what you were gonna get in the first place. Is that fair? I think so. Be bold or go home.

Fallen Flag

So...I build power lines. I had to run a trouble call in a nearby town and when I finished the call I headed back.

On the way I passed a restaurant that had a landscaped garden out in the front near the highway. They had a small American flag on a plastic stick that was supposed to be stuck in the ground but it had fallen over and was now lying on the ground.
I glanced over and saw the flag but I kept driving and I started thinking and one thought lead to another. I thought 'I should have stopped and picked up that flag and replanted it'. Then I thought 'Eh, who cares, anyway?'. Then a picture came into my mind. You've seen the movies where the Union soldiers are charging up the hill and the flag bearer gets shot and starts to drop the flag and another guy throws down his rifle and takes the flag and they keep charging? And I wondered why someone would do that and if they would do that today?

Things are not the same as they were back then. There was honor to be a flag bearer and you didn't let the flag hit the ground or be captured. Men would give their lives to not let that happen.

It wasn't that long ago that a World War II vet who had fought the Japanese would not buy anything from Japan. Maybe you have a grandfather or granduncle who still might be like that.
Hell, years ago you didn't lock your doors to your house. You left the keys in the ignition in the car parked out in your driveway. No one stole anything. At least not in small towns across the USA.

They didn't steal or rob or rape or anything like that because it just wasn't acceptable in society in a small town and everyone knew everyone else.
Now, we don't care. Someone broke into your car and stole your stereo? Wow, too bad. Oh well, insurance will cover it.

We don't want to wait for anything. We want it now. We don't care about our neighbors. Have you even MET your next door neighbors? What about the ones across the street?
We don't care if our neighbors are laid off. We probably don't really care if our brothers are laid off. We just want what we want and we want it now. I really don't even think we care about quality. If it LOOKS like what we want then that's good enough.

Who cares where it's made? That doesn't affect ME and I don't care about anyone else but ME.
Yeah, I COULD save up and buy an American (or English) made amp but I wouldn't be able to get that amp for six months and I want one NOW.

Well you know what? You SHOULD care. Even if the only one you think about and care about is YOU. Why? Because this country's economy is spread around and one thing affects the other.
What do YOU do for a living? You sell something? Shoes maybe? Do you work in a restaurant as a waiter? Do you build houses?

Well think about this. Every time you buy something that's not made in your own country you're NOT supporting the job that some guy in this country is holding down. Pretty soon, if that trend continues, the company where this guy works is not selling as much as they were before and soon they don't need as many people there. So they lay off that guy.

Now, a laid off guy doesn't have money to spend so he can't buy a new pair of shoes or go out to eat or build a new house and THAT affects YOU. That ends up affecting you no matter WHAT your job is. Even if you sell those Made in China amps. It may take awhile for a struggling economy to get to you but it's gonna happen.

If you want this country to make it economically, you need to do your part. You need to buy American any time you can. You need to look at the label and see where that thing you're gonna buy is made. If it's not made here then don't buy it. Buy the one that IS made here. If they don't have one made here then get the manager and ask why they don't have one that's made in the USA. He'll tell his district manager and that will eventually make it up to corporate if enough of us keep asking why.

Of course, if you don't care about this country and how it doing economically, then why the fuck are you here? Get the fuck out. This country doesn't need you or want you. You're a parasite. Fuck you AND your kids AND the horse you rode in on.

Ok, maybe that's a tirade. Maybe it's a bit harsh. Maybe we should ask the guy who just got laid off because the thing he was making here in this country is selling cheaper because it's now made in China by under paid over worked slave labor. I'm sure he'd be much softer in his opinion.

Anyway, I had another trouble call later that day to the same town. On the way out of town I had to drive by that same restaurant and that same flag. This time, I pulled over to the side of the road and walked over and replanted that flag. I just thought it was the right thing to do. I mean, who ELSE was gonna do it?

What The Hell Is This?

If you own a guitar then you are inadvertently pushed into a camp or a column or a group whether you want to be there or not. Much the same as being born into this world.

The idea for this blog started when I was posting on a forum site about a certain guitar manufacturer. I started to see comparisons between guitars and politics. Brand loyalty. Ours is better and yours suck. Categories and hierarchies within the group. Mine was made in 1959 and yours was made in 2009 so mine is better even though they both have the same name on the headstock.

I wondered why we could be so vitriolic towards each other when we had so much in common. I like music. You like music. I like guitars. You like guitars. What? You have a Fender and not a Gibson? Are you a retard? Why would you choose a Fender over a Gibson?

I found myself being hateful when someone disagreed with me on points that I thought could not be challenged. For example, if you live in this country, surely you must agree that buying a Chinese made guitar over an American made guitar is unpatriotic and economically suicidal. Apparently, there is an entire spectrum of viewpoints on that topic.

How could this be? How can two people look at something that appears to be so clear cut but see things so differently?

We'll see...