'Free Trade' With Foreign Countries Is Not 'Free Trade'; President of 300 Employee Cranston Print Works Says NAFTA and Other Trade Policies Help Only Huge, Multi-National Companies

By Ed Oliver
May 2003 Print Edition

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"Free Trade is great theory, but we don't practice it," says George W. Shuster, president of the oldest textile company in the U.S. "We're opening up America, but we are not getting reciprocal access to other countries," he tells MassNews. Everyone hears about our trade imbalance with China. But very few realize the size of our problem with Canada and Mexico, which soon will expand to include all of Central and South America.
		Cranston Print Works in Webster is battling to keep manufacturing here in Mass. It's one of the few textile plants that remain.

"The term 'Free Trade' was adopted in a very cynical way to fool everybody," he says.
It's supposed to open up other countries to our products, but that is not the real agenda.
"Once you understand what these huge companies are really doing, then you can understand why we are losing all these jobs," he says.

Cranston Print Works operates its major manufacturing facility in Webster, Mass., employing 300 people, although it is still headquartered across the border in Rhode Island. The employee-owned company is doing the same thing today it did back in 1824 - printing fabrics.
Its president says there is a great disparity between what we have to pay in tariffs and what other countries pay us. Even when foreign countries have reduced their tariffs, they find ingenious ways to not let our stuff in, he says.

Shuster is not embarrassed to speak his mind about this subject. He says most people are afraid that they will get shouted down as ignorant and stupid. They are told that all the economists in America believe in free trade; if they don't, they are troglodytes and idiots.

		Shuster was Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, a student of economics in graduate school at MIT and a graduate of Yale Law School. He's also co-chair of a manufacturing lobby along with Roger Miliken, president of the largest textile company in the world, headquartered in North Carolina. The group, called The American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, tries to educate people and change the whole approach that we are taking toward trade.
George W. Shuster, President of Cranston Print Works Company

Shuster says that working at the Capitol in Washington is not always the best solution. You have to bribe them with campaign contributions. He feels it's better to educate the people. The American people understand this issue much better than the people in Washington, he says.

Every time they take a poll, no matter how it's worded: "Do you think NAFTA helped or hurt us?" or "Is U.S. trade policy creating more jobs or less jobs?" the views Shuster espouses dominate the responses at minimum 3-to-1, but other times as many as 8-to-1, he says.
Two-to-one is considered a major victory in politics. But somehow in Washington they don't get it, he says.

He thinks it is because of the large multi-nationals and the large retailers - the importers with deep pockets who are behind this policy.

Mexico now ships more cars by itself to the U.S. than the U.S. ships to the entire world.
Shuster says to be totally fair, of the 2.5 million manufacturing jobs lost in the last couple years across the entire country, part of that can be attributed to productivity increases and part to foreign competition, but "a big, big chunk" can be blamed on trade policy that is designed to make it happen.

"It's designed to encourage people to manufacture it abroad and bring it back here with no tariff."

Shuster says even without the recession, manufacturing was in decline because of trade policy, and some people believe that is a good thing, figuring we don't need to make things anymore and can give each other haircuts.

On top of that, government is one of the few sectors where they have been adding jobs, he says. "You can't just tax people who aren't making anything and then give each other haircuts. The whole thing will collapse," says Shuster. Cranston Print Works is the oldest textile printing company in the United States and supplies fabric for the home sewing industry, manufacturers of home furnishings and apparel manufacturers.
		We now have a U.S. trade deficit over $1 billion/day. This textile factory in Webster must be allowed to fairly compete in the world, says its president.

Every single Cranston employee lives in the United States, yet the company exports to over 50 countries.

The Webster, Massachusetts Division is its manufacturing and distribution arm. With an annual payroll and benefits package of approximately $14 million, it employs 295 people with an average of 18 years service, 72 employees with 25 years or more of service and has 275 active retirees. Ninety-eight percent of Cranston's stock is owned by employees.

The plant currently operates six state-of-the-art rotary screen print machines on three shifts, five days per week. Plant capacity is approximately 55 million yards per year.

Cranston considers itself an environmental leader in its industry. Among their many awards, the Webster Division was winner of the 1993 Toxic Use Reduction Environmental Award given by Worcester Business Journal in conjunction with the Massachusetts Audubon Society for reducing the use of toxic chemicals plant-wide by over 80% since 1991.

In 1996, Cranston was selected to participate in the state's first Cleaner Technology Demonstration Sites Program run by the Massachusetts Toxic Use Reduction Institute.
In 1997 the company received an energy efficiency award from Massachusetts Electric Company. The company has a recycling program and has instituted successful wastewater reduction and water conservation programs.

The Cranston charitable foundation supports a wide range of educational institutions, museums, libraries, hospitals, social service agencies and scholarships.