Using Plant Closing Laws to start Community-Run Businesses

In a recent article in the Alliance for Democracy newsletter, Elizabeth Sholes suggests that if a town has the will to do so, plant closing laws can actually be used to benefit the community. (Any examples?)

Is there a suitable situation in Maine? How would you find out about plant closings, other than searching the newspapers?

Plant closing laws can help institute local control. Created to offset forced closings of liquor producers during Prohibition, federal tax laws permit accelerated depreciation of closed businesses to give the parent company huge sums back from past taxes. Declaring their abandoned business virtually worthless, companies get millions in cash from the government. That windfall has been the ‘cash cow’ of corporate business since the shutdown of Youngstown Sheet & Tube in Ohio in the 1970s. Bethlehem Steel was handed nearly $1 billion from the government when they closed their Lackawanna, NY plant in 1983.

Many shut-down businesses abandon workers and communities without fulfilling existing obligations they assumed when accepting state and local tax breaks and incentives. In lieu of repayment, state and local governments could acquire the business–but at this vastly depreciated price set by the corporation. Faith and community organizations could then work with state and local governments to re-sell these businesses at low prices to the abandoned employees or the community, which can operate the business once again.

The full article is at:

http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/pdf/AfDJR2402.pdf