Back to School Special: School Notebooks Dumped in U.S.

Full story: http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/07/29/back-to-school-special-school-notebooks-dumped-in-us/

Economy

Jul 29

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Back to School Special: School Notebooks Dumped in U.S.

Tens of millions of school kids will be heading back to class in a few weeks with brand-new notebooks, full of hundreds of lined pages waiting be filled. Are those notebooks being illegally dumped in the U.S. market?

Last week several members of the USW International Union (USW) who make those notebooks at the Alexandria, Pa., MeadWestavco paper plant joined a public hearing. The hearing examined charges that China, Indonesia and India are illegally dumping school notebooks on the U.S. market—with U.S. workers losing jobs as a result.

Last fall the Association of American School Paper Suppliers filed an anti-dumping case with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). It charges the trio of nations, where wages are low and worker exploitation commonplace, with illegally flooding the United States with the low-cost notebooks, the manufacture of which is subsidized by those governments.

Holly R. Hart, assistant director for the USW Legislative Department, told the ITC hearing:

As a consequence of imports, employment in the U.S. school notebook industry has declined significantly during the period of investigation, as did hours worked and total wages paid, and there’s the additional fact that our workers have been forced to give major wage and benefit concessions.

...to check the "made in" label. Or stick with Mead.

ETA: And not just notebooks. Pencils, pens, markers, crayons, glue...it's there on the label. Read it.