Goodyear Invades the Backcountry: The Corporate Takeover of a Rural Town

Palmer, Bryan D.

ISBN 10: 085345910X / ISBN 13: 9780853459101

Published by Monthly Review Press, 1994

About this Item

New York. 1994. Monthly Review Press. 1st Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 085345910x. 180 pages. paperback. Cover design by Goodness Graphics. keywords: Politics Business America Rural Takeover. DESCRIPTION - What happens when a runaway shop' runs away? The abandoned area suffers economic collapse, unemployment, and social decay - but what about the place the company moves to? Bryan D. Palmer, a leading social historian, chronicles the Goodyear Corporation's building of the world's most modern tire plant' in Napanee, a backcountry town in Ontario desperate for jobs. He explores the human dimensions of plant relocation as Napanee's leaders are bought off by the giant rubber company's sordid business practices, and the town's cultural life is reduced to corporate boosterism. Leaving behind a unionized workforce of 1,500 in its old plant in Toronto, Goodyear set up shop in rural Napanee with a nonunion workforce of only 550. Along the way, the company entered into secret negotiations with town officials to keep land costs low. It wangled $95 million in government subsidies. It drilled its new employees into disciplined industrial teams.' And it enlisted the high-school principal into holding Goodyear pep rallies and adapting the curricula to meet the company's needs. Palmer's lively narrative, illustrated with photos of the transformation of Napanee, cuts through the myth of partnership' to uncover the real costs of corporate penetration of a rural town. inventory #35770.

Seller Inventory # z35770

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Goodyear Invades the Backcountry: The Corporate Takeover of a Rural Town
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 085345910X
• ISBN 13: 9780853459101
• Binding: paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good in Wrappers
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

In 1990, Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Corporation opened "the world's most modern tire plant" in Napanee, Ontario. In Capitalism Comes to the Backcountry, Bryan Palmer chronicles the machinations and manipulations the corporation used to entrench itself in a region desperate for jobs. Palmer explores the human dimensions of plant relocation, sordid corporate practices, and, ultimately, the corrosive cultural effects of corporate boosterism. He describes negotiations between Napanee officials and a secretive company, anxious to keep land costs low before it made its final move. Meanwhile the firm was successfully seeking $95 million in government subsidies. Capitalism Comes to the Backcountry is a vivid, hard-hitting expose of the workings of big business and their impact on people and their communities.

Reviews

Shortly after history professor Palmer moved to Newburgh, Ont., agents of an anonymous company using only their first names started investigating nearby Napanee as a possible location for a new plant. There followed months filled with enticements aimed at the still-undisclosed Goodyear: cajoling by local politicians; a videotaped appeal from the town high school; a $32-million interest-free loan from the Ontario government; simultaneous with a run of speculation that would leave the rural community with vacant strip malls and industrial parks. Then Goodyear finally announced its plans for a new modernized tire factory. Palmer delves into the (near) past of Goodyear's Etobicoke plant a few hundred miles away, which was closed, according to Goodyear, because of the expense of staving off an attempted buyout. Palmer notes that by closing Etobicoke while keeping plans for the new factory secret, Goodyear was able to jettison a heavily unionized plant for a mechanized one with virtually no union presence. Palmer is also interesting when looking at the corporate familial philosophy that became a guiding force even in the curriculum at the high school. Palmer (Descent into Discourse) occasionally falls prey to jargon (``indicates the importance of establishing ideological hegemony and sustaining a kind of cultural imperialism as capitalism penetrates its own, once marginalized, hinterlands.'') Still, this is clearly a subject physically and spiritually close to home; and for the most part, Palmer treats his subject with a personal touch.

Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.