Free Trade Nightmares for My Home Town
World's Largest Refrigerator Plant Closing, Walmart Moving In
Twenty percent of local tax base just lost their jobs. Stores already closing.

I come from a town of 150 people, a place called Fenwick, Michigan. The nearest "big" town is Greenville, home of the Danish Festival and birthplace of the modern supermarket, Meijer.

I've been having nightmares ever since I received the double blow that multinational electronics manufacturer Electrolux and supermarket chain Walmart are both fundamentally altering the fabric of my town. Electrolux announced last month they are closing the refrigerator plant and moving the lines to South Carolina and Mexico, not because they were losing money, but because they weren't making enough. Moving the plant will make them an additional $81 million.

The Detroit Free Press wrote:
Despite an offer of what amounted to $182.6 million in tax credits, union concessions and a new building, Electrolux said it would move most of the work to a new $150-million plant in Mexico.

The company estimates wages in Mexico are 10 times less expensive than the $13 to $15 an hour plus benefits it pays its Greenville workers.

The Greenville closure underscores how fragile Michigan's once mighty smokestack economy has become due to rising costs, such as health care, and the lure of doing business in nonunion areas where labor is cheaper.

The Dems attacked Bush. The UAW issued this statement, attacking everything from the loss of jobs to the Emerald Ash Tree Borer insect that came in on untreated Chinese timber and is now ravaging Michigan Ash trees. (As a gardener from the Mitten State, in one of the four counties in America affected by the Borer, I know how terrible the blite is. Ann Arbor had to replace all of the thousands of Ash trees that line their city streets).

I'm not against global trade. I'm not against Mexicans and South Carolinans having manufacturing jobs. I'm pro-union to the extent that unions have done much to improve the lot of workers' lives, but not pro union enough to support them across the board. Through my father, who worked as an engineer and manager at the second-largest manufacturer in the area, I've seen too many unions protect people who just want to slack off.

But I am against multinational corporations who think they can fuck workers after the workers have done so much to make them what they are today. Corporations owe something to the community they become a part of, especially when they become such a large presence. Communities once had the right to revoke corporate charters. In the case of Electrolux, have little recourse. Electrolux is Swedish. Of course, in the case of Walmart moving in, Americans can still tell Sam and gang where to stick it.

So Walmart has decided to build a store in my hometown; this will inevitably follow the same pattern as every other Walmart. Local stores will shut down, workers' salaries will be driven down. My town already has a major shopping store, part of the Meijer chain that pioneered the concept of one-stop shopping in the 1960s. While Miejer's wages aren't great, they're better than Walmart's. And now they'll have an excuse to lower them.

This is outrageous. I agree with lesbian singer songwriters Bitch and Animal. Jackhammer Walmart parking lots! They've siphoned off enough jobs. I just hope the people in my town know better than to believe the ads. A bouncing yellow smiley face lowering prices is not the reality of the world's largest supermarket chain.