Amazon and Foxconn in Kenosha, Wisconsin: The new American “special economic zone”
By
Christopher Davion
7 March 2019
The opening of operations at Amazon’s Fulfillment Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2015 was a major early step in a major economic transformation underway in the greater Southeastern Wisconsin. Amazon, Foxconn, and other massive companies are taking advantage of the devastation wrought on this region over several decades of deindustrialization, a reason to develop the area into a massive platform for low wage labor.
On Wednesday, July 26, the Trump administration together with Governor Scott Walker and Senator Paul Ryan announced that Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant who assembles the Apple iPhone and is the largest technology manufacturing contractor in the world, will be constructing a 20 million square foot factory in the Southeastern Wisconsin region that would employ up to 13,000 workers.
Foxconn, which generated approximately $135 billion in revenue in 2016, is notorious for its horrific working conditions and record on-the-job employee suicides at its operations in Shenzhen, China. The $10 billion investment is expected to receive $3 billion in tax subsidies and include plans to build a virtual city with company housing and stores, effectively turning the region much further into an American version of the “special economic zones” that exist in third world countries.
Nick, a gas station attendant in Kenosha, noted that good-paying jobs were difficult to come by in the area. “I worked at Snap-On for about a week and a half, and then they let me go. A lot of places do that kind of thing around here, or just hire you as a temp for a little bit”. He added, “My dad…