Former cigar factory worker finds jobs for ex-collegues

While I despise the singling out of a small group of citizens to pay for something as expensive as health care, I’m leery of blaming everything out there on SCHIP. I’m not at all convinced that SCHIP simply gave the Hav-a-Tampa corporate overlords the excuse they needed to ram the final nail into the factory coffin.

In the corporate world, the bottom line is the final arbiter. Political considerations and public opinion can sometimes put a damper on bean-counter decisions, the fact remains that the boardroom choices are based on how much profit is at stake.

The Puerto Rican factory was already up and running, and I refuse to accept that the corporate accountants weren’t already suggesting the move that we witnessed in Tampa. After all, if they can realize any time of profit gain from the move, the decision was a no-brainer. It’s a case of those last millions of dollars in profit not being quite enough, so they decided to add a few more hundred thousand to the corporate kitties.

SCHIP gave the Altadis USA Board of Directors the political cover they needed. Now, instead of their disruption of US workers being blamed on corporate greed, everyone is blaming SCHIP.

Don’t get me wrong, I despise what SCHIP is doing to the tobacco industry. Nevertheless, we cannot overlook how the corportization of the industry is also affecting US workers. Shipping jobs overseas to realize a few more cents per unit has a long and proud history in Corporate America.