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Buy American Mention of the Week
2-14-05



To Boycott or Not to Boycott Maytag



          One weapon consumer patriots have in influencing corporate
responsibility among American firms is the all-powerful boycott. Of course
such strategies carry more weight if there are ways to act in unison with
other consumer groups or organizations, but nothing gets the attention of
corporations more than hitting them in their bottom line and causing profits
to suffer by steering consumer dollars to their competitors.



          The French boycott that began right before the Iraq war was
probably the most notable of successful boycotts - at least recently.
Americans suddenly started to think twice about where their wine, cosmetics
and other products were made and if they were French-owned or not. And
suddenly people started buying more Italian, Australian and fortunately more
California wine as a result. American consumers also discovered that such
familiar brands as Dannon, L'Oreal, Maybelline, Wild Turkey and RCA were
French brands and that there were plenty of good American alternatives.



          Labor unions have been somewhat successful with many boycotts
since union workers still make up about 13% of the workforce in America, and
have forced many companies - American owned and foreign owned alike - to pay
American workers more-acceptable wages and provide better working
conditions. Labor unions have also played a large part in other high-profile
legislation and were instrumental in denying President Clinton fast track
authority in the 1990s.



          One of the more-recent labor issues on the job front involved
Maytag's decision to close their refrigerator plant in Galesburg, Illinois
and transfer the work to Mexico. But as with any situation that is clearly a
negative for thousands of American workers, we must carefully determine the
best course of action. The best solution is not always to immediately
boycott the company that has forced American workers once on assembly lines
to instead assemble in unemployment lines.



          For example, although Wal-Mart is America's largest importer of
Chinese-made goods and has forced many American suppliers to source their
product from China to meet Wal-Mart's strong-arm demands, the AFL-CIO has
not adopted a formal boycott against Wal-Mart. The reason? Wal-Mart might
boycott union suppliers as a result and force still more American workers to
lose their jobs. But we can still boycott Wal-Mart as individual consumers.
The reasons in favor of doing so are overwhelming in number. There is a
difficult-to-find article on my website that I wrote several years ago about
Wal-Mart and you can read it here
http://www.howtobuyamerican.com/simmermaker/ba-030517-walmart.shtml, but of
course many more reasons to boycott Wal-Mart have developed since the
earlier part of this decade.



          Should we stop buying Maytag refrigerators which now come from
Mexico? The answer is "yes" as long as there are American brands like
Whirlpool, Amana, General Electric and Kenmore that still manufacture in the
USA. But should we boycott the entire Maytag line of products, which include
other types of appliances manufactured by other American workers? The answer
to this question is a definite "no." Allow me to explain why:



          Many of you reading this article are subscribers to the "Buy
American Mention of the Week" and receive this article automatically. One
subscriber to this list works for Maytag and assembles washers and dryers in
Newton, Iowa, and recently informed me that although Maytag did move their
refrigerator jobs to Mexico, they have also recently moved some jobs from
Mexico back to America.



          It seemed Maytag was starting down the same path with their
washers and dryers as they were with their refrigerators when they
transferred production of the electrical-wiring harnesses from Iowa to
Mexico. These harnesses were fabricated south of the border and shipped back
to Iowa where union workers would install them in Maytag washers and dryers.
But over a period of several months, Maytag discovered quality problems with
the harnesses, and the work has since moved back where it belongs in Iowa.
Workers who once fabricated the electrical harnesses in America were put
back to work and the rest of the Maytag workers who feared their jobs might
be in jeopardy now feel much more secure.



          Had we boycotted Maytag washers and dryers, would the
electrical-harness work be transferred to another foreign location? Maybe.
Had we boycotted Maytag washers and dryers, would Maytag have suffered
losses in profits that might have forced them to explore relocating more
work from America - where we demand higher wages - to a different low-wage
location like China? Possibly.



          Even if the answers to these questions turned out to be "no" and
work stayed in America anyway, a company-wide boycott of Maytag probably
would have had no overall effect since Maytag's competitors (who you would
now be patronizing) are - to at least some degree - doing the same thing.
Consumers angry at Maytag might have bought a Frigidaire, White-Westinghouse
or Gibson refrigerator. But did you know the Swedish owner of these brands
also owns Eureka and recently moved production of their vacuum cleaners from
Michigan to Mexico? There are examples like this in almost every industry.
Consumers upset that Nike makes no shoes in America might buy Reebok or
Adidas instead not realizing these other companies don't make any shoes here
either. New Balance still makes about 30% of their tennis/walking shoes in
America and SAS (San Antonio Shoes) makes all of their tennis/walking shoes
here. Consumers upset at Levis for closing their last American factory shift
to buying Lee or Wrangler who are closing factories just as fast. Some
consumers angry at Maytag probably bought an American-made Haier
refrigerator from Wal-Mart not realizing Haier was a Chinese-owned company,
when they could have bought an America-made refrigerator from an
American-owned company.



          As with any strategy, the reaction to Maytag's decision to close
its refrigerator plant needs to be well-planned. Awareness is the key. The
next refrigerator you buy should be American made and American owned since
only American workers pay taxes to America and American companies pay about
three times as many taxes to the U.S. Treasury as foreign companies (like
Eureka, White-Westinghouse and Frigidaire) do.



          Profits are the lifeblood of any successful economy, and American
companies must have adequate profits to pay American wages. Aside from
obvious examples of pure greed, the reason many American companies move
offshore is inadequate profits in an increasingly more-competitive economy.
Let's support the home team and make sure they know we all stand behind
American companies who still make things here to keep them making things
here. We are all in this global economy together, and we need to work
together to make the right buying decisions that have the best lasting
effect.



          In the case of Maytag, a company-wide boycott would have only
resulted in more American layoffs and kept other jobs in Mexico from
returning home. There must be at least one American company in every
category of American industry to prevent foreign monopolies in our homeland
which could lead to foreign price-fixing in the absence of American
competition. What incentive will Japanese companies have to avoid collusion
once all the American electronics competitors are gone? Would Japanese
companies act in the best interest of their home country or their U.S.
subsidiaries? If Toyota put GM out of business and Honda bought Ford, would
what's best for Nissan also be what's best for America? I doubt it.



Roger Simmermaker, Author

How Americans Can Buy American

www.howtobuyamerican.com <http://www.howtobuyamerican.com/> 


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