Thanks to Chuck Schumer, one of our very local issues is getting some attention from entities as notable as the New York Times (registration required to read) and the NBA.
Adidas is planning to move most production of N.B.A. players' official jerseys and shorts out of the United States, managers of the main factory producing the gear said on Tuesday.
With the decision threatening 100 jobs at the factory, American Classic Outfitters in Perry, N.Y., 50 miles east of Buffalo, Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, urged Adidas not to move the jersey operation.
"It is flat wrong for Adidas to move the production of jerseys worn by N.B.A. players outside the United States when there are U.S. companies that have done this work so well and for so long," Schumer said. "And to do it in this economic climate adds insult to injury."
Schumer said he might ask the N.B.A.'s commissioner, David Stern, to intervene.
Good for Senator Schumer. Speaking as someone who lives just a few miles from Perry and has been over there many times, 100 jobs are something that could make or break a community out here. Despite the low cost to employ workers out here, far lower than in the cities, there are still very few manufacturing jobs available in the rural areas where they're badly needed. A company like Adidas, considering relocating to some sweatshop operation in China to save a few dollars, could end up pulling the plug on hundreds of real people--the workers, their spouses and children, and all the others who rely on that money coming into the town to run their own small businesses.
In these towns, every dime of outside money means the world, and 100 jobs can mean the difference between survival and slow economic starvation.
With luck Senator Schumer will lay down the law with Adidas over this travesty. When that happens, it's my hope that the Senator would be interested in coming out here and visiting the town he helped keep alive. |
