Word: guymon
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...welfare--from local, state and federal governments. Indeed, officials trip over one another in the rush to extend taxpayer support to Seaboard--from the Federal Government's Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) in Washington to the Kansas state agency responsible for industrial development, to the utility authority in little Guymon, Okla. Wherever Seaboard is, there is a government throwing money at it. Money the company uses to build and equip plants, hire and train workers, export its products and expand overseas...
...than overhaul the plant, Seaboard responded in the classic manner of corporate-welfare artists: it began quietly looking around for another town, another state. Alarmed, Albert Lea and Minnesota came up with an additional $12.5 million in incentives to keep the plant. But Seaboard had found a bigger patsy--Guymon (pop. 7,700), in Texas County, Okla. Guymon, the county and the state put together an economic incentive package worth $21 million to entice Seaboard to the Oklahoma Panhandle, a section of the country where hogs and cattle far outnumber people...
...just Oklahoma's subsidies that persuaded Seaboard to relocate. The Albert Lea work force was unionized; wages had risen to $19,100 a year--still $3,100 below their level in 1983, but too rich for Seaboard's blood. Guymon, by contrast, promised low-wage, nonunion labor. Also, Seaboard had decided it wanted to raise its own hogs for slaughter, not just buy them from farmers. Minnesota banned corporate hog farms. Oklahoma had had a similar ban but had repealed it before Seaboard came along...
When Seaboard moved on to Guymon, it left behind in Albert Lea the abandoned hog-slaughtering building, empty parking lots, a waste-treatment plant that now operates at only 50% of capacity and higher sewer bills to pay for it. And when Seaboard walked, the state had to come up with some $700,000 to retrain displaced workers or help them find new jobs...
...used to have a nice small town here. Then the neighboring town of Guymon decided to have a pig processor move its plant there. We will soon have 4 million hogs in our backyard, and the resulting sewage from them will be dumped into open pits. Sort of ruins the neighborhood and the small-town atmosphere, if you know what I mean. DON UKENS Hooker, Okla...