Saturday, February 19, 2005
 
Ne'er The Twain Shall Meet

The St. Louis Post Dispatch suffers from cognitive dissonance. Every once in a while, they post stories about companies leaving St. Louis, such as this analysis piece from February 5: Does loss of company HQs hurt St. Louis?:
    St. Louis lost yet another homegrown corporate headquarters last week with the announced buyout of Pulitzer Inc.

    And if the swirling rumors about a buyout of May Department Stores Co. are to be believed, an even larger corporate base could quickly follow Pulitzer out the door.

    But while the region's business leaders grit their teeth, they must ponder this question: Job loss aside, does it really matter if a corporation no longer calls your city home?
So they gnash their teeth for a bit, but then they jump on the bandwagon for the local labor whenever a local union strikes. Oddly enough, the Post-Dispatch cheerleads local labor strife and at any given time, the Post-Dispatch has at least one high profile dispute to rah-rah. Why, in 2004, we had:

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

Auto dealer mechanics

Newspaper Guild (oddly enough, since that union struck against the Post-Dispatch, the paper was less eager to stick it to The Man)

Boeing Machinists

SBC

Grocery workers (end of 2003, I know, but it doesn't seem that long ago)

So why would a corporation come to or stay in St. Louis, a labor-friendly town that supports entire workforces stopping work for days, weeks, or months on end? Perhaps the tax incentives that the local and state governments favor and the Post-Dispatch lauds.

The climate for business, particularly the manufacturing and blue collar businesses whose employees the Post-Dispatch champions, is difficult, murky, and prone to the whims of organized labor and government largesse. Why would a corporation base its business here?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:09 AM
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