Trade panel sets Web site
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, August 18, 2003
Greensboro, N.C. — The American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade is creating a Web site to support its campaign against wood bedroom furniture from China.
The site, www.legaltrade.us, should be operational this week. It will contain information on the committee's position along with updates on the progress of its petition claiming Chinese-made bedroom furniture is being dumped in the U.S. market. The group plans to file the petition with federal agencies this fall.
The site will link with another Web site, www.saveusfurniturejobs.com, which is promoting a letter-writing campaign to Congress, with citizens expressing their concern about the loss of U.S. furniture manufacturing jobs to their Washington representatives.
Lewis Canter, vice president of manufacturing at Hooker Furniture, spearheaded the development of the latter site, which allows users to customize and print letters to send to congressmen.
Canter said the site is a grassroots effort among individuals in the industry.
"There's no corporate money behind this (Web site)," he said. "The idea came from one of our employees in one of our plants. I get a lot of questions, like 'What can I do to save our jobs?' The obvious thing is to write a letter, but then they ask what to write. The easiest thing seemed to be to put up a Web site."
