We Are the (Third) World
Posted by Amara Projansky on Mon, Oct 03, 2011 @ 04:25 AM
On September 23rd, China’s Linuo Solar Group announced plans to purchase the former IBM West Campus in East Fishkill to use as the company’s US headquarters. If things go as planned, the company will invest $100 million and hire up to 1,000 people over the next years.
In an expansive, praise-everyone-but-the-pope press release, local and regional heavyweights applauded each other for landing Linuo. The Dutchess County Economic Development Corporation, The Solar Energy Consortium, Governor Cuomo and Representative Maurice Hinchey were among those receiving kudos.
They’re merited, too, even if the communiqué laid it on bit thick. Jobs are a fine thing. The more the better—and an estimated 80% of the Linuo Solar jobs will be manufacturing line jobs, the sort of bread-and-butter, blue-collar positions that have been flying out of the region (and country) faster than a speeding neutrino.
The news has a shadow side, though. Remember when we used to outsource jobs, when it was people in India or Vietnam or, yes, China who were being put to work by American companies? Linuo’s arrival in the Hudson Valley turns that story on its head. Now we’re the ones being grateful for foreign job creation—the ones hopeful that foreign capital will show up, like Jimmy Stewart come knocking on our door, to bring a ray of sunshine to our lives.
The announcement’s timing contributed an ironic twist. For much of September, the abrupt demise of US solar company Solyndra, which had received $535 million in loan guarantees from the Obama government, was front-page news. Now along comes Linuo, prosperous and successful—everything, in short, that Solyndra and the US solar industry are not.
Vincent Cozzolino, founder and co-ceo of The Solar Energy Consortium, has an explanation. “It’s predictable,” he says. “We’ve outsourced so much manufacturing that we’re bound to get to a point where we’re not efficient at it anymore. As a country, we haven’t kept current with how to build things better. Once you get to this state, you’ll inevitably have failures. Now it’s our turn to learn from the Chinese.”
About manufacturing, and maybe some humility too. If we ever want to be reminded about the decline of American empire, we need look no further than East Fishkill.
By Carl Frankel
Carl Frankel writes regularly for Chronogram about local business, sustainability and other issues.