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Factory man : how one furniture maker battled offshoring, stayed local--and helped save an American town / Beth Macy.
Lippincott Library HD9773.U74 V38 2014
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Macy, Beth, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Company.
- Furniture industry and trade--United States.
- Furniture industry and trade.
- Dumping (International trade).
- Bedroom furniture industry.
- United States.
- Bassett, John.
- Bassett, John D., III, 1937-.
- Bassett, John D.
- Bassett Furniture Industries.
- Furniture industry and trade--Foreign ownership.
- Bedroom furniture industry--United States.
- Offshore outsourcing.
- Dumping (International trade)--United States.
- Globalization.
- Galax (Va.)--Economic conditions.
- Galax (Va.).
- Physical Description:
- x, 451 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Edition:
- First edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2014.
- Summary:
- Describes how the chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture fought for his more than seven hundred employees in a small Virginia town using legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and his wits and determination in the wake of sales losses to cheap Asian furniture imports.
- "The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its production overseas. One man fought back: John Bassett III, a shrewd and determined third-generation factory man, now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of more than $90 million. In Factory Man, Beth Macy brings to life Bassett's deeply personal furniture and family story, along with a host of characters from an industry that was as cutthroat as it was colorful. As she shows how he uses legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and sheer grit and cunning to save hundreds of jobs, she also reveals the truth about modern industry in America." -- Publisher's description.
- Contents:
- Prologue: The dusty road to Dalian
- The tipoff
- The original outsourcer
- The town the Daddy Rabbits built
- Hilltop hierarchy
- The cousin company
- Company man
- Lineage and love
- Navigating the new landscape
- Sweet Ole Bob (SOB)
- The Mount Airy ploy
- The family elbow
- Schooling the Chinese
- Bird-doggin' the backwaters
- Selling the masses
- The storm before the tsunami
- Trouble in the 'Ville
- Stretching out the snake
- The Dalian dance card
- Gathering the troops
- Mr. Bassett goes to Washington
- Factory requiem
- Million-dollar backlash
- Copper wires and pink slips
- Shakedown street
- Mud turtle
- The replacements
- "Sheila, get me the Governor!"
- The Smith River twitch
- Appendix. A Virginia furniture dynasty.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 415-442) and index.
- Local Notes:
- Athenaeum copy: Gift of the Rev. J. Michael Pulsifer.
- ISBN:
- 0316231436
- 9780316231435
- OCLC:
- 862790783
- Publisher Number:
- 99959088941
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