Saturday, 27 February 2016

My hometown corporatized kiddieland.

I was really disappointed the other day when I read that my hometown had sold out to corporate sponsorship.  Town council accepted a $100,000 “donation” from Spinrite, the major yarn and craft textile manufacturer that has its factory and head office there, to the new municipal day care centre.  In return, council agreed to include Spinrite in the name of the new facility.

There’s nothing wrong with sponsorship and corporate donations.  In fact, more corporations should be doing this.  Spinrite probably could have donated more than $100,000 if it really wanted to.  What I don’t like is this shameless selling of the names of public facilities to whoever comes along with the biggest cheque.  Stingy is the best word I can find to describe the budgetary and decision making habits of the council in my hometown.  Its members have always seemed to give the impression that ones highest calling in life is to live as cheaply as possible.  $100,000 is a pretty cheap carrot for a company to dangle before the eyes of the perpetually frugal.

It’s true, Spinrite is one of the biggest employers in town.  Many of the employees likely make use of the public day care centre.  However, in a world where the lives of children are commercialized from the moment they’re born, whether it be through the manufacturers of disposable diapers and baby bottles to every mass market toy baring the evidence of Disney, do we really need the logo of a company on a place that should be set aside for children to be cared for, for them to play, and for their creativity to be encouraged?

There’s a labour component to my complaint too.  It’s mostly rooted in history.  Spinrite was for years owned and operated by one of the wealthiest families in town.  This really created an “us and them” social structure.  A structure like this is much more tolerable in a large city, but in a small town in the prairie-like farm country, it’s a lot more noticeable.  Although the company is now a publicly-traded one, it still looks to me like the paternalistic old-money class throwing crumbs at those less privileged.  The factory was also known for its hot and dangerous working conditions and an extreme dislike for even the slightest talk about union organization.  Having a corporate name on a public facility reminds me too much of the old days of company towns where workers were stuck living in a place owned by their employer.


The local press really dropped the ball on this story.  Nobody asked the hard questions about corporate sponsorship, selling the name of a public facility to whoever showed up with a fat cheque, and is it socially responsible to have a place for the community’s children under the influence of corporate branding?

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