Race To The Bottom

Textron continues to layoff employees and is now roughly 30% of the 400 peak employment level. All of this within about 18 months. The employment rate for Washington County before the layoff announcement was 12.3% for June. Not exactly good news for the city or county.

The reason given for the layoffs was a decline in American made automobile sales. I have no reason to suspect that statement. American auto manufacturers blame everyone but themselves. Notice the Japanese automakers are doing fine. The employee/retiree medical benefits are the blame. Having to pay pensions is the reason. The union is the reason. Maybe if the American automakers built cars that the American public wanted they might sell a few more, that just might be the real reason.

Back to Textron. I understand that the city gave some fairly significant incentives for the company to locate here. I believe the company took advantage of those incentives and took flight from Illinois to avoid the high labor costs. What they found, however, was that cheap labor can be expensive. Since all my sources are unnamed and unreliable, I am not using any of them as fact. However, I think that from the beginning they had a staffing problem which, in part, is a problem of not understanding the culture. Part of the employee's problem is not understanding the culture of auto manufacturing. Not showing up for work is not an option. With that said, Textron probably wishes they never heard of Greenville. Textron will likely become another vacant building joining Marconi, Mebane, Brintons in that chorus of sucking sounds heading off to another country. You can say "thank you" to our outsourcing, free trading legislators name, Lott, Cochran, Wicker, and Pickering.

Meanwhile, the Guv'ner is vacationing (er, touring?) in Asia. We see how the Momentum Money is being spent. He's going to Japan, South Korea and China among other stops to drum up business. Uh, Haley...they already have our plants, you are confused, our jobs are going over there not the other way around. HiTech? The Chinese own our technology and what they can't buy, they steal. Yeah. It's good for our economy, ask Trent and Thad. So what the hell are you doing spending taxpayer's money on a boondoggle in Asia, looking for Basa?