Former President Carter Praises U.S. Workers in Valley Appearance

Former President Jimmy Carter told workers at a Northridge stereo components factory Tuesday that they prove that American workers can compete successfully with the Japanese.

“We watch and we hear every day that Americans cannot compete with the Japanese,” Carter told workers at Harman/JBL Inc., according to a company statement.

“You prove every day that this allegation is absolutely false.”

Carter’s comments followed months of increasing tension between the United States and Japan over Japanese statements blaming the trade imbalance between the two nations on the poor quality of American workers. The latest round began when Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Monday that Americans may have lost their work ethic and the drive “to live by the sweat of their brow.”

Carter, 67, toured the sprawling design and manufacturing plant at 8500 Balboa Blvd. with his wife, Rosalynn, and Sidney Harman, the company’s founder and chairman, who served as undersecretary of commerce under Carter.

Carter told the 1,500 employees that no U. S. citizen could watch people at work there “and not come away from it extremely proud to be an American.”

Carter, President from 1977 to 1981, said the sound systems in his Plains, Ga., home and the Carter Center in Atlanta were built by Harman/JBL workers.

JBL Inc., a unit of Harman International Industries Inc., designs and manufactures most of its loudspeakers at its 500,000-square-foot Northridge plant, the company said. The speakers also are sold in Europe and Japan.