I'm rather skeptical of any "workers at factory are mistreated, unhappy, et cetera" story that just <i>happens</i> to coincide with an attempt by a big-labor union to unionize said factory.<p>Where did this story come from? Why are we reading about it right now? Of all the thousands of factories in America, why is the attention of the Los Angeles times focused on a single furniture factory in Virginia?<p><i>Some of the Virginia plant's 335 workers are trying to form a union. The International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said a majority of eligible employees had signed cards expressing interest.</i><p>Which is it? Are they trying to form their own union? Or is an extremely large union trying to get them to join it?<p>Why is it that the only people they managed to interview for the story were one disgruntled former worker (where did they find him?) and a union representative?<p>What I'm trying to say is that I think the very existence of this story, and the spin which has been put on it, is a combination of deliberate feeding by the union combined with lazy journalists.
"The big difference is that the Europeans enjoy a minimum wage of about $19 an hour and a government-mandated five weeks of paid vacation. Full-time employees in Danville start at $8 an hour with 12 vacation days — eight of them on dates determined by the company."<p>"It's ironic that Ikea looks on the U.S. and Danville the way that most people in the U.S. look at Mexico,"
This is old news, by the way (April). Ikea followed up here in May:<p><a href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/Swedwood_statement" rel="nofollow">http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/Swedwood_state...</a><p>In short, they plan to fix the mandatory overtime problem, and they claim not to be involved in union busting. The latter charge, even in the article, was weak -- mandatory meetings where management tries to talk people into not unionizing? Sounds pretty benign.<p>They also denied the charges of discrimination.<p>Sounds like they hired American management who weren't really on board with their philosophies, and that they're fixing the problem.
As a former freelance writer, and somebody who lives just an hour north of Danville, it's a really weird feeling to see an LA Times article about something in our sleepy little neck of the woods. Woo hoo! We hit the big time.<p>So naturally, I'm doing quality control as I read. Where are interviews with management? Couldn't get them. Where are the interviews with the politicians who set this deal up? Couldn't do that either (but no explanation). Interviews with the people who like the work? Nope. Any attempt to try to see if there was another side to the story? Unknown, but unlikely.<p>But more importantly: where is the <i>context</i> to the story? You know, where you look at similar plants in the region, talk to somebody who has seen this story occur before, tell us how these things usually play out?<p>You see, there is a great regional story here. But you wouldn't know if from this article.<p>I'm not saying Ikea is running a great plant. If the trend holds, it's probably just like it was described -- at least for some. For others it's probably a life-saver. It follows in a long line of plants where politicians made tax concessions and begged overseas companies to come use the lower wages and higher work ethic found around here. There's a big ribbon-cutting ceremony where your local politician gets to smile and be on the news, there's a big construction effort, there's a big story about management abusing the workers, there's unionization threats, and then -- unionize or not -- both sides work it out. I could tell you 4 or 5 of these stories myself, and I haven't written any news copy in over 20 years.<p>But you wouldn't know any of that from this article. All we get is some hack playing dialing for assholes from a phone hundreds of miles away. I'd like to know where he got the list of people to talk with. I'd also like to know where he got the story idea in the first place.<p>I don't know enough about Ikea to say this story is mostly correct or mostly incorrect. But I know enough about writing and the local area to say this story is mostly incomplete. Not a good article.