As of Sept. 5, the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee approved a $3 billion incentive package for Foxconn – a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer – to build a factory producing LCD panels in southeastern Wisconsin. With approval from the Joint Finance Committee, the bill will continue to the Senate and Assembly later this month.
While this Foxconn deal proposes large job growth for the state of Wisconsin, this bill will ultimately put a foreign corporation first at the expense of workers, taxpayers and the environment.
If this factory is built, the state of Wisconsin will pay Foxconn nearly $3 billion over 15 years in hopes of job creation and future investments.
Critics of this incentive package rightfully argue that the state is giving away this money and doubt that Wisconsin and its citizens will see benefit from this deal.
Foxconn claims that if a new factory is constructed, the company will create up to 13,000 new jobs. However, no minimum job growth is required as part of the bill, and some estimate that realistic job growth could be as little as 3,000.
Investing $3 billion for job creation which may fall 10,000 jobs short is an ill-thought-out waste of money.
Even if Foxconn really does produce 13,000 new jobs, the incentive package translates to Wisconsin paying between $15,000 and $19,000 per job per year. According to the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, this is more than six times the per-job cost of an average manufacturing incentive package.
While no exact location for the factory currently exists, the Taiwanese manufacturer is in final negotiations with Racine County, after Kenosha dropped out of consideration earlier this week.
Racine County lies very close to the Illinois border, and it is not clear how many northern Illinois residents may take jobs at Foxconn in place of Wisconsinites.
Ignoring the sheer size of this incentive package, the plan also includes an unprecedented legal provision for Foxconn.
The bill would allow Foxconn to skip lower state appeals courts and appeal any lawsuits directly to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. No other Wisconsin business holds this ability.
This provision clearly rigs the judicial system in favor of a foreign entity and against Wisconsin citizens and Foxconn employees alike.
If the previous reasons were not compelling enough as to why a Foxconn factory in Wisconsin would be a disaster, it would also harm the environment.
The proposed bill exempts Foxconn from state rules which protect Wisconsin wetlands. Under the proposed legislation, Foxconn will be allowed to pursue construction on wetlands and waterways without a state permit or writing an environmental impact statement.
This bill, and the accompanying Foxconn factory, puts corporate interest ahead of citizens, taxpayers and the planet. The $3 billion dollars Foxconn would receive will not return to the state of Wisconsin, and the whole ordeal will prove disastrous if this bill passes the Senate and Assembly.
sareynol@indiana.edu
