Josh Dzieza of The Verge magazine headed off into Wisconsin to find out what Foxconn was really doing. And what he found (or didn’t find) is summarized in this fantastic article. In the article, it is clear Foxconn’s alleged factory in Racine County isn’t close to being built and will likely fall far short of what was promised when Scott Walker and Donald Trump and Paul Ryan had their photo op in 2017 claiming they would return manufacturing to the USA in return for billions in state and local subsidies.
In this article, a= common theme is that Foxconn got the media attention they and GOP politicians wanted, but that no one has a clue what to do next with this scam, including Foxconn. And so despite hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure being built in that corner of the state, very little work has followed.
Another part of that Verge story involved Dzieza going to Foxconn’s “innovation centers”, which are supposed to be in a variety of cities around Wisconsin to allow for high-tech jobs and research to complement what is being made in Racine County. And no, the innovation centers are not developing either.
Dzieza starts at Foxconn’s alleged Wisconsin headquarters in downtown Milwaukee, where has a hard time getting any information from the few people that work there.
The Foxconn employees I approached invariably said they couldn’t talk to the press, though they were all very nice about it. One even shouted, “Oh no, sorry!” while literally running down the sidewalk away from me. But they held the line; a trio in their 20s who were waiting for a cab couldn’t even confirm or deny that they worked at Foxconn.
What I can confirm: there are Foxconn people there. I’ve seen their purple lanyards, and I’ve seen the panic in their eyes when I introduce myself as a journalist. A search of LinkedIn and local job boards indicates that there are likely a few dozen of them, mostly recruiters, project managers, and “concierge” employees.
Which leads to this great quote from a Milwaukee legislator.
“It’s the Midwest Fyre Festival, straight up,” said state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff when I met him at a diner in Milwaukee, “all sizzle, no steak.” A pugnacious Democrat with a frizzy mane, the result of refusing to cut his hair until his bill improving sign language translator availability is passed, Brostoff thinks the project is “100 percent a scam,” that state Republicans know it, and that the reason they undermined [Governor Tony] Evers [by taking oversight of Foxconn away from him] was so the “ticking time bomb of fiscal irresponsibility” explodes on his watch.
Then Dzieza comes goes to one of Foxconn’s regional “research facilities” in Eau Claire. He finds this.
Public records show that a renovation permit has been taken out for the space, but multiple sources involved with the innovation center process say no one working on the project has a contract, and no one has been paid.
Dzieza says Green Bay's “innovation center” is much the same, with a mutil-tenant building showing little sign of everyday Foxconn operations,and Green Bay’s development director says in the article that “Foxconn would occupy only a single floor of the six-story building.”
Right on cue, a few days after that Verge story hit the Internet and implied Foxconn was still a black box of unfulfilled promises and barely-occupied buildings, look what happened in my town.
In an expansion of its presence around the Badger state, Foxconn Technology Group (Foxconn) today announced the acquisition of a landmark property at 1 West Main Street (One West Main) in downtown Madison and continued the growth of its network of Wisconn Valley Innovation Centers. Purchased from BMO Harris Bank, One West Main will be renamed Foxconn Place Madison and will serve to connect the University of Wisconsin-Madison and regional suppliers and partners with the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park and other Foxconn facilities in Wisconsin.
BMO and their approximately 100 employees in downtown Madison will continue to reside in the building, leasing space from Foxconn. Furthermore, a BMO Harris Bank branch will maintain its presence at the base of the building.
Nice deal for BMO Harris Bank, as they get several million dollars for their asset, and get to keep a key location on the Capitol Square.
But wait, if the bank and its jobs stay in the building, where does Foxconn come in? Ah, here we go.
"The Foxconn Institute of Research in Science and Technology (FIRST), part of which will be housed in Foxconn Place Madison, is an important part of that partnership. Through it, we hope to drive advances across a number of scientific fields over many years to come. These advances will not only create new technologies, they will also benefit human health and well-being.”
Under the signed Foxconn/UW-Madison Collaboration Declaration, Foxconn Place Madison will serve as a hub for technological innovation and provide an environment for students, staff, faculty and researchers to collaborate between Foxconn Place Madison and the UW-Madison campus. This off-campus building in downtown Madison will support research and development initiatives including advances in medical, material, computer and data sciences.
Riiight. Because when you want to collaborate with UW-Madison, you locate well off campus, and particularly far away from where the Engineering, Medical, and Computer Sciences are located.
The agreement spells out that a Foxconn-sponsored building will be located on the campus’ engineering quad and a facility located close to campus will be owned by Foxconn…
UW-Madison and Foxconn also declined last month to answer questions about the status of their partnership, including an update on the status of the campus building and how much UW-Madison has raised in matching funds to date.
In fact,
that article last month from the Wisconsin State Journal indicated that no one knows if a steering committee on the Foxconn-UW partnership has even met, because UW-Madison officials claim that the committee isn’t subject to the state’s open meetings laws.
Another reason your BS detector should be going off is because Foxconn bought a building that seems to be nothing but offices and apartments, with no real on-site lab to be found. But there is one building in Madison that is very convenient to get to, as shown from the front door of “Foxconn Place”.
That makes it pretty easy for Foxconn-hired lobbyists and other employees to meet up with GOP legislators to make deals/promise donations to keep this scam afloat. It also reminds me of this clause in
the contract Foxconn signed with WEDC.
“Full Time Job” means an employee position in the [Foxconn Enterprise] Zone [in Racine County] or outside the Zone, but within the State of Wisconsin, and for the benefit of the Recipient’s operations within the Zone, filled by a Full-Time Employee whose entire Wages are treated as paid in Wisconsin under Wis. Stat 71.25(8)(b).
All that’s needed for Foxconn to hit the state’s 17% kickbacks on salaries and 15% kickback on capital expenditures is for them to reach 520 jobs “within the State of Wisconsin”, since Foxconn will likely claim that the Potemkin Villages innovation centers are part of the Racine County manufacturing project.
If 520 full-time employees are in place at Foxconn locations by the end of 2019, then Wisconsin taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $221.5 million next year. And that figure is on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure and land that has already been gifted for the benefit of Foxconn, including another $31 million that We Energies ratepayers will pony up for, after the Wisconsin PSC approved of a natural gas pipeline this week to handle “additional growth” in and around the Racine County Foxconn site.
What a disgusting scam. Given that the contract specifically mentions that Foxconn is to be building large-scale Gen 10.5 panels that they won’t build any more, it’s time to drop the hammer and take these guys to court. Hopefully, Foxconn will settle for less than what we’re going to be on the hook for if they end up sticking around for a few more years, and we can cut them that check get them out of Wisconsin before they rip us off even further.