[Yakima, WA] — When Fleetwood Enterprises sent laid off California employees, then promptly opened a trailer building plant in Mexico, the cries of “Foul!” were heard far and wide in the community of RV buyers. Now a Canadian firm announces it will soon open an RV building plant in Washington state.
Adventurer Manufacturing of Abbotsford, BC announced it will start building RVs somewhere in the Yakima area as early as August of this year. The company will assist its employees to make the “transition” to the new plant where possible–we presume if Canadian workers want to come the US to work, they may receive some help.
Meanwhile, Yakima business support leaders are looking at the situation as a godsend for local workers who’ve been tossed out of work with the “indefinite closure” of the Western RV manufacturing plant that laid off over 200 employees last week. With the weakening American dollar, Canadian exports to the US are harder to sell. Scoring a harvest of experienced RV manufacturing line employees and paying them with American dollars–then selling the finished product directly in the US may work to Adverturer’s advantage.
Get the American slant on the story on the Yakima-Herald website. For more information on the Canadian product, visit this web site.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm and is filed under RV manufacturers, Western RV, general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Why should it surprise anyone that Fleetwood went south of the border. The big three automakers and parts suppliers have been doing that for the past 20 years. Cry foul all you want but the best thing to do is “Buy American.”