Just one example of a good company gone bad - Perhaps?

A note from Bark1:
At first glance it may seem like all the blame goes to Burton... In the story below the following fact is stated: "It costs more to make a snowboard in Vermont than the company can get back in price". Is this Burton's fault? I lived in Vermont and can honestly say it is NOT! This is squarely the fault of the bourgeois class from states like NY, NJ and MA moving to a great state like Vermont and RUINING it with TAX and SPEND politics. NY is rated one of the WORST states to do business for that reason. That is one area the GRASS ROOTS conservatives have gotten it right.... Cut government and taxes, but not just for the rich! Start thinking about your neighbor, not just how to line your greedy pockets...

Now on to the story..........

What Burton Snowboards’ Decision Means
Politics by Emerson Lynn
Burton Snowboards is to Vermont what sap is to maple trees – part of the landscape. Born thirty years ago in Londonderry, it has cultivated an image ensconced on the edgy left, offering employees matching child-care payments and picking up half the costs of fitness club memberships. It has been seen as a progressive company at odds with the oft-reviled corporate ways.

That was the past.

In the end, costs matter and Burton Snowboards announced Tuesday that it would no longer make snowboards in Vermont – or anywhere else in the United States. Manufacturing is to be moved to China and Austria. The iconic founder of the company, Jake Burton Carpenter, put it succinctly: It costs more to make a snowboard in Vermont than the company can get back in price. The decision will cost 43 Vermonters their jobs.

This is not a story new to Vermont. But our leaders have routinely played them down as being the exception, not the rule. And, in the past, they have pointed to companies like Burton Snowboards as being proof that a company can not only survive here, but thrive, parenthetically insinuating that others could too, if they just would. This is the same game being played with the periodic example of Vermont’s wealthy leaving the state for more favorable tax climes elsewhere. It’s easier to pretend the issue doesn’t exist rather than to address the core issues involved.

The Burton Snowboards’ decision should send a message to the state and to the Legislature that sets state policy. Burton would have preferred to manufacture its boards here, but has long understood the futility of doing so. Tuesday’s announcement was the culmination of a rather long process that has steadily sent production elsewhere. Less than 10 percent of the boards produced now come from the Vermont facility.

The company is quick to say it still employs 377 Vermonters in its headquarters, and that it will continue with plans to expand its research and design division. But that’s not the point that should concern Vermonters. If the cost of manufacturing in Vermont has become prohibitive to a company like Burton Snowboards, then the same concern applies to others. Utility costs matter. Tax policies matter. Legislators talking about expanding the number of mandatory sick days matters. Lack of health care competition matters. The Legislature’s failure to address a bankrupt state unemployment trust fund matters.

Together they paint the state as a place that can’t compete for new manufacturing jobs, and a state at risk for being able to keep what it has.

It’s easy to slide along with the political inertia that says, oh, well, manufacturing jobs are going the way of the horse and buggy … Vermont is better suited as a knowledge-based economy.

Not only is that defeatist. It’s dangerous. We don’t have an educational system equipped for a knowledge-based economy. Not yet. If sixty percent of the state’s population is without a college degree, and if many of our friends’ and neighbors’ work means getting a little dirt underneath the fingernails, then the loss of manufacturing opportunity should be a matter of great concern.

This is why it matters when the Vermont Senate prematurely decides to vote against the relicensing of Vermont Yankee. Those who run businesses – and those who may be looking here to relocate – instantly worry about the increased pressure on energy prices. It’s all part of a composite that translates negatively about Vermont and its inclination to provide a competitive business climate.

The only silver lining in Burton’s decision to eliminate its production line in South Burlington is if our leaders would wake up to the fact that the challenge is serious and one that will continue to push our manufacturing jobs downhill – right along with a Burton snowboard.