Maybe this will be a new Shotgun Facility?
NEWPORT — The decision by gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. to open a third manufacturing plant at a 220,000-square-foot facility in North Carolina came as no surprise to state economic development officials, who said they had worked closely with company management in the hope of convincing them to expand in New Hampshire.
Ruger currently employs about 1,200 at its foundry in Newport and another 900 in Prescott, Ariz. With firearm sales going through the roof over fears of gun control, the company in May announced plans to expand and create 500 to 700 new jobs at a third factory.
Company President Michael O. Fifer told shareholders at their annual meeting in May that the $30 million expansion would not be in New England. “We’re growing by leaps and bounds in Arizona and New Hampshire,” he said at the time, “and we’re not taking any jobs out of those places. Those plants are fully employed, and we expect to continue adding jobs incrementally.”
Newport and NH can thank the dumbocrates that voted down the "Right to Work State" for NH ! more jobs lost for the union payoffs by libtards !
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20130711/OPINION01/130719911"
Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Co., spent months openly seeking a location for a new manufacturing plant to supplement its existing operations in Arizona and Newport, N.H. “We had a number of criteria for expansion, and we did not find anything in New Hampshire that we thought was suitable,” Kevin Reed, general counsel and vice president for Sturm, Ruger, said. “Right-to-work state was one of our criteria,” he added.
Imagine that. A large, successful, American manufacturer wanting to operate in a state where employees could not be compelled to join a labor union or pay it tribute in the form of “association fees.”
In the last legislative session, the House Republican leadership made a strong push for right-to-work. It was defeated by Democrats and pro-labor Republicans, who claimed fatuously that it was really the “right to work for less.” Ignoring the fact that wages in Southern and Western states were lower on average than in Rust Belt states before right-to-work laws, opponents suggested that the laws caused lower wages. Wages do tend to be slightly lower in right-to-work states, but after cost of living is taken into account the gap narrows, or even vanishes.
What is unquestionable is that right-to-work states see higher rates of job growth. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that “private employment has grown 4.9% in right-to-work states over the past three years, versus 3.9% in other states, according to an analysis of Labor Department data. This disparity is particularly stark in the factory sector: Manufacturing employment has grown 4.1% in right-to-work states over the past three years, compared with less than 3% in other states.”It is unlikely that right-to-work would significantly depress wages in New Hampshire. It is highly likely that it would increase employment. In the meantime, companies like Sturm, Ruger continue to move South.
