Home medical products maker Invacare Corp. (NYSE: IVC) has taken center stage in Ohio’s gubernatorial election, thanks to a TV advertisement from Gov. Ted Strickland that criticizes the outsourcing of Buckeye State jobs.
The ad features a Lorain woman named Nilda Ramos, whose husband lost his job at Invacare after having worked for the Elyria-based company for 22 years. Her husband’s job was shipped to China, Ramos claims:
Outsourcing is enough of a bogeyman in jobs-strapped Ohio, but the job loss at Invacare must’ve looked irresistible to the Strickland campaign, once it realized the governor’s opponent, Republican John Kasich, is a member of the company’s board of directors. That enabled Strickland’s campaign to connect Kasich with the outsourcing issue.
“John Kasich sat on Invacare’s board as a director, and signed off on jobs being outsourced and sent to China and Mexico,” Ramos says in the ad. “I believe they sent those jobs overseas so they can make more profit."
Predictably, Invacare was not thrilled with the ad, pronouncing itself “very disappointed that its home-state governor would attack it in a campaign commercial,” in a press release.
It probably doesn’t hurt Strickland’s cause that Invacare founder and chairman, Mal Mixon, is a staunch Republican who has donated to Kasich’s campaign. That would seem to make Invacare more willing to call out any perceived slights against Kasich from Strickland’s campaign.
Invacare also shot back that it still employs 1,300 people in Ohio, and while cutting local jobs was “difficult,” the move strengthened it in the long run — enabling it to hire more Ohio workers in subsequent years.
While criticizing outsourcing in a manufacturing-heavy state like Ohio could win Strickland some fans, will it outweigh the cost of calling out one of the state’s major employers — and one with a leader who’s not afraid to shower cash on his opponent, at that? We’ll find out in November.
