New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s spokesman tried to put some water on the news that 2,000 jobs will be leaving New York State soon as Remington moves it’s Illion, NY facility for Alabama.
He posted a comment on Twitter trying to spin the news as untrue.
Yeah, Rich. You just keep telling yourself that, much like a toddler proclaiming something over and over in an effort to make it be true.
In a sense, we’ve discovered, it’s not as simple as “Bon Voyage!”. It’s more nuanced.
Which brings us to this: Over at No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money, John Richardson does a fabulous job extrapolating and interpreting an email he recently received.
Yesterday I received a very perceptive and enlightening email regarding Remington, jobs, and unions. The person who sent it to me is very well versed in the inner workings of unions but prefers no attribution and to remain anonymous.
Ladies and gents, I too may (or may not) have received the same email a couple of days ago from a hypothetical source to remain nameless.
Honestly, I knew so little about the union angle, that I didn’t really know what to do with it. So I sat on it.
Anyway, it pops up the post at NL-OGAM. “Wow! So THAT’S what it meant!”
I share it with you. Go read the whole thing. It’s very insightful. In short, the move doesn’t bode well for either unions or anti-gun activists and like minded state and local governments.
The first point he made is that Remington Outdoor Company will say nothing about moving jobs from Ilion to Huntsville for a couple of reasons. First, anything that Remington says that could be interpreted as coercion or related to bargaining would likely lead to serious charges brought by the National Labor Relations Board. The second reason is that Remington’s contract with UMW Local 717 could very well contain language or clauses that would lead to automatic unionization of the Huntsville facility. This is referred to as successor language.
The second point he made is that without successor language, it doesn’t look good for union representation in the South especially given the loss at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. Interestingly enough, Alabama has the highest unionization rate of any Southern state.
Remington has a large operation in Ilion and it won’t be easy to move. But given time, you will start to see operations begin to move South. It is my understanding that R&D is already slated to move to Huntsville. The city, by the way, is also home to the Redstone Arsenal which has as one of its component organizations that Army Material Command as well as a number of Ordnance Corps units. If the Republicans take control of the US Senate, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is the 3rd ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and could easily get the ear of the DoD for Remington.
…To sum it all up, while Remington’s current contract with Local 717 may preclude the rapid transfer of existing production lines from Ilion to Huntsville, production will start shifting South over time.