Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

Page 3 Annual Hearing Tests Underway At All Plants “Clinton Mills annual audiometric tests are underway," reports Sonny King who coordinates the program, “and tests results indicate employees are, for the most part, taking good care of their hearing." Clinton Mills was a pioneer in area textile audiometric testing and has one of the best self-administered hearing conservations around, noted King. Since the late 1960's, the company has gathered data from thousands of employees. “Proper wearing of company approved hearing protectors has been a key element in the success of our program. Without the understanding and support of employees and supervision, it would be difficult to ade quately protect employees’ hearing," he added. “Through constant communica tions, educational data, and follow up, we've been highly successful in getting employees to protect their hearing." Although employees are required to wear hearing protectors on the job in designated high noise level areas, it is important to also protect one's hearing off the job. Loud music, race car engines, motorcy cles, gunfire, etc. can all take their toll on hearing. Many other non-noise factors have been known to affect hearing also. These factors include injuries at birth, viruses, head or ear injuries, ages, diseases and various medica tions. Clinton Mills is pleased with the full cooperation from employees during the tests," stressed King. “Employee ear plugs are inspected, tests administered, results of tests given and explained, and any questions an employee asks are answered." Employees experiencing medical hearing problems are encouraged to consult with the plant registered nurses. These trained medical personnel will be pleased to answer employee questions about hearing conserva tion. Lawrence Gross discusses his audiogram with Sonny King. Each employee's test results are re viewed and the employee is afforded an opportunity to ask questions. Charlie Blufford is fitted for earplugs by King in order to achieve proper hearing protection. Sonny King places audiometric earphones on Jerry Smith in preparation for Smith’s annual audiometric test. "Crafted With Pride" Workshop Clinton Mills participated in a “Crafted With Pride" workshop last month. Spon sored by the American Textile Manufactur ers Institute, the workshop set the tone for industry representatives to formulate plans and activities to combat the rapid increase in textile imports. Over 130 representatives of textile com panies, fiber producers and machinery manufacturers spent the day brainstorming and sharing ideas with the hope that each could learn something new and useful for the promotion of the “buy American" con cept. Here are a few interesting things parti cipants learned: -Trained interviewers telephoned 1,350 consumers in major cities, small towns and rural areas in 32 states. They discovered the American consumer DOES look at labels. When asked to compare imported clothing items to those produced in the U.S., 47 percent felt imports are not as good, 24 percent felt imports are equal to domestic goods, and only six percent felt imports are better. -Those interviewed felt retailers make more profit from the sale of imported clo thing than from the sale of American-made clothing. -Fifty-five percent felt there is a need for tougher federal laws limiting imports. Thir ty-one percent voted no, while 13 percent were undecided. -Jim Martin, president of ATM I, noted that the campaign will not be successful unless textile companies continue to provide the best value to the consumer. The best value includes styling, durability and price of the product. -Look closely at those catalogues that you receive at home in the mail. Do the written descriptions of the products tell you that it was made in the USA? Writing catalogue sales departments and requesting this infor mation can make a difference. -Some textile companies are junking their old textile machinery rather than resell ing it to companies overseas who would use it to make products that would re-enter the U.S. for sale. -A Chinese manufacturer asked the presi dent of a large U.S. textile company how a product made in China and sold to a retailer in the U.S. for $1.20 can be sold to U.S. consumers for $9? This is an example of how much retailers are marking up imported pro ducts. -The $10 million pledged to support the Crafted With Pride program is not extrava gant when comparing this amount to other advertising programs. According to a work shop speaker, the Wool Council spends approximately $22 million per year to rein force the recognition of the wool logo found on wool products. -A textile plant with 550 employees closed one year ago. A survey was made to see how those employees fared. Two hun dred seventy of the 550 were reemployed. Seventy-seven percent of this group accepted jobs that paid an average of $ 1.50 less per hour than they were making before the flood of imports closed their plant. Representing Clinton Mills were President George H. Cornelson and Director of Com munications Mack Parsons.