Danville Workers’ Complaints Surround IKEA’s U.S. Factory

Extremely interesting article about the IKEA factory in Danville, VA, the city I escaped from, I mean I was born in…

Thanks to Tim Flowers for making me aware of this article in the Los Angeles Times…

Funny….I don’t recall seeing it mentioned in the Danville Register and Bee…

“It’s ironic that Ikea looks on the U.S. and Danville the way that most people in the U.S. look at Mexico,” Street said.

The Swedwood factory is situated on the outskirts of Danville, in the midst of rolling tobacco country, just north of the North Carolina border.

For most of the last century the town of 45,000 relied on textiles and tobacco for jobs. Today the riverfront is lined with empty red brick warehouses and crumbling mills. With the unemployment rate high — currently at 10.1% — the city has put muscle behind attracting new companies, including Ikea.

“They’ve definitely given jobs to people that desperately needed them here,” city manager Joe King said.

Swedwood says it chose Danville to cut shipping costs to its U.S. stores. The plant has been run mostly by American managers, along with some from Sweden.

via Ikea: Workers’ complaints surround Ikea’s U.S. factory – latimes.com.