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Doing our Part in Reweaving America. Are You?

Let’s start with some alarming facts about the American textile industry:

Over the past ten years, more than 5.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the U.S. since 2001 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics
In 2008, there were fewer than 500,000 wage and salary workers in the textile, textile product and apparel manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
More than 40,000 U.S. manufacturing plants closed their doors in 2008 alone
Only about 11 million people still make things in the US which is the lowest since 1941

Naturally, we care a lot about the rapid decline of the American textile and apparel industry and do what we can to keep jobs here. To that end, AirDye Solutions has joined forces with other American textile companies to raise awareness and encourage hotels, hospitals, purchasing companies, designers, management companies, and all involved in our industry to make the commitment to purchase at least 60 percent of fully USA manufactured goods.

Together with Integra Fabrics, Milliken, Fabri-Quilt Hospitality, Wyoming Weavers, Tahoe Mills, and Hampton Prints we have kicked off the Reweaving America campaign.

While cheaper prices (for now) can be hard to overlook, there are significant sacrifices to using foreign sources. Expectations of consistent quality control, guarantee of quality products, and timely delivery of any product we purchase fall short all too often. Plus, there are the customs issues, problems around worker’s rights, and inconsistent environmental regulation enforcement, just to name a few more “costs” of using Asian or South American factories.

Our hope is that by bringing up these issues at HD Expo and other industry gatherings, we can encourage more companies to opt for American manufacturers, thereby growing our economy, employing more people, and bringing each and every one of us more customers.