ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.
The news from Alleg
an County’s largest employer continues to be both alarming and depressing.
Perrigo late last week announced it was laying off 100 employees at its Allegan facility, and I fear there’s more to come. A familiar pattern is developing here. As Yogi Berra was reported to have once commented, “It look like deja vu all over again.”
Anyone who’s been paying attention to economic news over the past 35 years should recognize the predictable story. Local business blossoms and grows, begins to consolidate with other players in the field world wide, moves its corporate headquarters overseas to save money doing business, fends off hostile takeover attempts and then announces it must lay off employees, as many as 800 all over the world, and for now, just a hundred here in West Michigan.
“There are no coincidences, but sometimes the pattern is more obvious.” — Neil Innes and the Bonzo Dog Band in “Keynsham,” 1969
How awful it must be to work for a company that says it must cut costs and leave the community where it was based successfully for so many years because of that old nemesis, the bottom line and because of the global economy.
“You’ve done a terrific job, Tom, but you’re too expensive. We have to part ways because we’ve got to make more money.”
Anybody with any semblance of memory understands this great nation was an economic powerhouse worldwide in the mid-20th century because it had a strong middle class, good manufacturing jobs and a stable of workers who earned decent wages, enough for one bread winner to support a family of four comfortably. Those days are gone.
We’re in the fourth decade of watching that familiar story of a local company that tells us costs must be reduced in order to make greater profits, which means the plant must be relocated across the ocean and the work force must become the cheapest possible. And the ones willing to work for the lowest wages win the jobs. The skills and effort of the local workers will become irrelevant.
It’s a formula we watched helplessly almost 30 years ago when virtually all clothing manufacturers closed up factories in the United States and hired workers living in Third World countries, some of them dirt poor and too many under age 18. Then they have the gall to sell these products cheaply to us here back in the good ole USA. It’s like Nestle taking water out of your local trout stream and selling it back to you in your stores.
And we consumers buy into this system. Look no further than Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.
Not long ago, in my bottom feeder substitute teaching days, I used to ask students in every classroom to examine the country of origin tags on their T-shirts. Most were reported to be assembled in Mexico, Thailand, Cambodia, Honduras, Bangladesh, Vietnam and other countries far away and poor. On one occasion, a young man announced his shirt had been made in the USA. I insisted the entire class give him a standing ovation.
But let’s get back to Perrigo, which has become a huge player in the manufacture of discount house-brand over-the-counter drugs. The company has been showing me the first signs of painful process in which eventually it will bid Allegan adieu and a whole lot of people who work there and live in Hopkins, Dorr, Wayland, Martin and Moline will be left holding the bag.
Perrigo thus far has been doing the public relations dance I’ve seen before too many times. It usually doesn’t end well.
I agree with one thing Liberals like you mention what you do (the obvious), the symptoms, not the cause.
The cause is the excessive taxation – the most oppressive of all industrialized countries in the world. Why is this so high? Because the government has to pick the pockets of taxpayers and businesses to pay for the “bread and circus”, the non-producering, non-working, blood-sucking folks whom believe government owes them a living.
This isn’t just the government dependent welfare and disabled folks , but includes the corporate and agriculture subsidy lobby. This started as Democrat and Republican “give aways” to attract voting blocs for support, now they are a lodestone around the U.S. taxpaying citizen’s and businesses neck.
Business doesn’t exist to just provide jobs, but to make a product or supply a service others are willing to pay for, which generates sales and hopefully profits. Profit is a good word – it allows business to provide wages and benefits to workers and dividends to stockholders. Perrigo will do what is needed to survive as a company. The business has to survive, not the just the jobs in West Michigan.
Of course, those that never owned or worked in a business don’t understand (like President Obama or Mrs. Clinton), or use the myths and misinformation supplied by the likes of Liberals to keep the “enemy” spoof working in their favor. Democrats are usually the largest bloc of politicians to use that tactic, and Republicans as a “me too” party to pile on business from time to time.
This country has to understand all, yes all, problems are created by government, and few are solved by government, especially the federal government. The best thing to do would be to return the power to the states and the federal government do it’s constitutional responsibility for defense of the country and regulation of interstate commerce. Everything else should be free-market economies and state government policy. Less federal government means less expense and squandering precious tax dollars.