Opinion: Stop giving free lunches to North Carolina tech manufacturer Corning

One of North Carolina’s labor leaders says Corning—a tech manufacturer supplying Meta’s data center boom—is taking advantage of workers while soaking up millions in state and local incentives.

Corning, which has more than 3,000 employees in North Carolina, recently announced a $6 billion agreement to supply fiber optic cables to tech giant Meta to fuel the company’s rapid expansion of data centers.

Corning’s fiber optic manufacturing is headquartered in NC and they continue to build out fiber optic manufacturing plants across the state, including in Catawba County. This new agreement should be an economic boon for all of NC, but that won’t happen automatically. 

State and local governments have already provided the two companies with nearly $45 million in subsidies to set up shop in NC and to have access to our natural resources, use our infrastructure, and employ the labor of our workforce.

Students in our state suffer when business desires are prioritized over their access to adequately funded schools. What could Catawba County schools do with the money given to Corning?

These manufacturing positions should be a pathway to a stronger middle class for workers. Unfortunately, Corning is undermining its longstanding reputation as a good union employer in Wilmington, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Kentucky and has chosen to pursue an aggressive union-busting strategy as workers at Corning attempt to organize to get a voice on the job, even going as far as declaring the National Labor Relations Act, the law that gives workers the right to form unions, unconstitutional!

At the same time, Corning is bringing in millions in subsidies in Catawba County, while funding is being cut for the construction of a new high school and Hickory residents are facing a tax increase to pay for infrastructure improvements.

Students in our state suffer when business desires are prioritized over their access to adequately funded schools. What could Catawba County schools do with the money given to Corning?

We need an economic development strategy that works for everyone, not just corporations. Gov. Josh Stein and other state and local policymakers must use the power of their offices to ensure that all North Carolina workers, including those at Corning have good jobs and a fair place at the table and that schools and other community services are fully funded.

Late last year, when Catawba County and the City of Hickory agreed to provide nearly $9 million in local and county economic incentives to Corning to support the expansion of a manufacturing plant, the project was shrouded in secrecy—codenamed “Project Surge”—and quickly approved with no public comments.

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And, although the agreement with Corning contains requirements for job creation, we know that Catawba County recently moved the goal posts on a separate 2021 subsidy agreement with Corning, delaying investment and job creation requirements to make it easier for the company to comply. 

North Carolina’s working families often hear North Carolina politicians claim that these subsidy packages are necessary to attract business to our state. What they don’t yell loudly and proudly is that North Carolina often wins these bids without offering the largest incentive packages.

When companies like Corning receive subsidies, they are often too quick to turn around and spend our public money on share buybacks to enrich investors or on anti-union consultants to block workers’ efforts to form a union.

Since 2019, the company has completed approximately $2 billion in share buybacks. The irony is that Corning’s workforce in New York and elsewhere is already represented by a union.

Although workers at one Corning plant in Wilmington were able to successfully form a union, far too often companies act like they can play by an entirely different set of rules in the South and as if Southern workers don’t deserve the same rights or the same pay scales.

And at the same time, the North Carolina General Assembly is committed to writing laws that invite corporations to pay less and provide fewer benefits to North Carolina workers.  

The North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) reported in December that North Carolina ranks dead last among states with regard to funding for public schools. Students, parents and teachers shouldn’t have to suffer underfunding while companies like Corning receive millions in subsidies.

The Charlotte Observer reported last year that Corning’s Hickory project may receive additional state subsidies. We encourage Gov. Josh Stein and local officials to not give Corning a free lunch in Catawba County and ensure that the firm extends the same dignified conditions to North Carolina workers as they do in other states.