Garment workers union, UNITE-HERE, along with a coalition of trade associations filed its eight petition on Tuesday seeking safeguard restrictions against textiles from China. The petitions claim domestic textile production is being squashed by Chinese imports.

Lloyd Wood, director of media relations for the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition.

[Wood1] "After China joined the WTO Chinese-US import market share increased from less than 10 percent in 2001 to more than 70 percent as of June 2004. So, what we saw was when China had quota free access to the US market, they literally overwhelmed every other player in the market."

The petitions were given to the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA), which has fifteen days to either accept or reject the petition's charges. If CITA accepts the case a decision will be made within sixty days.