Chiquita announced to its employees today via email — not even in a staff meeting, y’all — that it will be closing its Charlotte headquarters location.
Yeah, who didn’t see that coming?
Mecklenburg County manager Dena Diorio gave the county commissioners a heads-up via email: “The company has expressed appreciation for the support of the community, and we have been assured that it will fulfill the terms of the economic development grant agreement, which requires a refund of $1,021,275, shared evenly between the City and County. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the company will be redistributing its positions to be closer to other operations and customers. We are not anticipating a formal announcement from Chiquita. “
Read more at WFAE.
This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2015.
The sign with their logo should be transported to the Government Center as a reminder of the idiocy of “incentives”.
Ever since the first politician formulated the delusion that they could create jobs by giving huge tax breaks and writing big checks to rich people and corporations, corporate executives, who are much smarter than politicians, have been moving jobs from one place to another. The bizarre game of musical chairs is not creating jobs, it is shoveling ever larger amounts of money into corporate profits by helping them play one community against others for money.
What politicians call “incentives” have become nothing but payments to extortionists. Every time you see a politician standing next to an executive announcing new “jobs” for the area you can bet that somebody just got a big chunk of tax money.