Newsgroups: can.politics
Path: utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimomura@lsuc.uucp (Jim Omura)
Subject: R & D
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Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Date: Thu, 31-Dec-87 12:26:41 EST
Summary: Free Trade, Foreign Ownership, and such
Message-ID: <1987Dec31.122642.19862@lsuc.uucp>
Distribution: can
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Organization: Consultant, Toronto


     I posted the following earlier today on BIX, but I thought
it would be of interest to Netters as well.  I have not really
taken sides on the Free Trade issue (this posting may make
people think otherwise, but it's true).  And I would like to
hear opinions on the matters addressed.

TITLE: McDonnell Douglas Strike, Foreign Ownership, Free Trade
     These 3 things are weighing heavily on my mind lately.  Let's
skip "free trade" in itself for a moment.  Foreign ownership is
the real issue of the day.

     The McD-D strike stands out in my mind because the US takeover
of McD-D was hotly opposed by the Liberals and NDP.  The Tory
government made the expected noises that it was in "out benefit".
Actually, both sides made "expected noises" I guess. :-)  There's
no doubt that being a big company, McD-D is probably *more* cautious
than other US takeover parties.  Yet, there seems some indication
already that they may be siphoning off jobs to the US.  Certainly
if the takeover never occurred, there'd have been no issue.  It's
not clear whether the strike would have been as bitter or long
(or any strike at all) except for foreign ownership.  Oh, it could
have been worse, but one doubts whether production would have been
moved to the US during the strike except for the takeover.
Note that the problem is not specific to "foreign" ownership,
but one common to all big company/little company takeovers.  It's
just that in this case it's effect is on a national level.  It
is probably made worse by international politics.  If the head
office is in the US, then local US politicians have more weight
to push the management to swing the plum jobs outside of Canada.
Having the clout of 10 times the market and other political
resources is also a factor.

     I expect that demographically, we on BIX are probably not
that worried about "factory work" level jobs, but what about R & D?
We did quite a bit here in Canada.  I would expect that those jobs
could also be siphoned off to the US.  Also, it's possible that
the type of R & D that McD-D was doing may be dropped as not being
profitable.  Low volume areas are often lopped off by big companies.
In the field of magazines, I'm still stinging from the collapse
of Creative Computing -- one of the most *successful* magazines
in the computer field, until it was taken over by a large publisher.

     In the computer field, it's hard to know exactly what to
expect.  Batteries Included is dead and gone.  I have no idea if
that is because of bad management (hard to believe) or just that
the companies buying them out were "corporate raiders" that stripped
the assets and ran.  Exceltronix is also gone, and I have no idea
what happened to their R & D.  In both cases the assets have ended
up in US hands.  In the case of BI, it's *clear* that Canadian
jobs were lost.

     Now, back to this "free trade" deal.  I *still* have not
got a copy of it to read for myself.  I'm hoping to do so over
the next week.  It is clear though, that it is related to freeing
up of foreign ownership.  It worries me.
-- 
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
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