Fake Silk by Paul David Blanc

Author:Paul David Blanc
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

7

Rayon Will Be with Us

Viscose was a pacesetter at the start of the twentieth century, the first major synthetic-fiber success story. In the 1920s and 1930s, rayon led the way as the prototype of a multinational business enterprise, an early model of what would become the dominant modus operandi for large business entities after World War II. Then in the 1970s, just as the updated term “transnational” began to come into vogue, viscose once again was at the forefront of a new business trend. Spin-offs, shutdowns, and offshoring became standard operating practice in the rayon industry for the remainder of the twentieth century.

The prelude to this dismantling was a series of mergers and acquisitions that left the old viscose principals unrecognizable by name. More than that, many of them no longer manufactured rayon as their main product. The first to be transformed through corporate mergers were some of the major U.S. viscose manufacturers. In 1963, FMC (originally the Food Machinery Corporation) acquired the American Viscose Corporation, which formed the basis of a new fibers group operating within its larger conglomerated enterprises. An entity called the Midland-Ross Corporation had taken over the Industrial Rayon Corporation in 1961; the old Elizabethton rayon enterprise had morphed into Beaunit, and in 1967 it was taken over by the El Paso Natural Gas Company, becoming part of another “diversified” portfolio.1

European rayon followed suit. In 1968, SNIA merged with another Italian manufacturing group, BPD, and got into the chemical business and the defense industry. In that same year, Hoechst acquired what had originally been Süddeutsche Zellwolle; in 1969, the Dutch-German integrated ENKA-Vereinigte Glanzstoff (AKU since 1929) merged with a paint and chemical manufacturer to become Akzo.2

A cycle of plant shutdowns led off the 1970s. It set a pattern for reshufflings and closures that continued unabated for the remainder of the century. Enka as Akzo led the way, announcing in 1972 its intention to close multiple production sites. The viscose workers in the Netherlands did not go along with this plan, occupying Enka’s rayon plant at Breda in a Dutch trade union first. This protest caused Akzo to back off its scheme, at least for a time.3 The workers’ anxieties during the uneasy truce that followed are captured in a photo-documentary series of the time, “Unemployment in the Netherlands.” It includes an image of a lone worker sitting on a stool facing a row of autonomously operating machines in an Enka plant, juxtaposed with newspaper text discussing workers’ fears of impending layoffs.4 After a decent interval, Akzo did shut down the Breda plants, and this time even a hunger strike by workers did not stop it. Then, in a further step to get out of the cellulose fiber business altogether, Akzo sold off their remaining American Enka subsidiaries to the chemical giant BASF. In 1989, Akzo celebrated its twentieth anniversary by giving its remaining employees logo-branded sports jackets. Five years later Akzo merged with Nobel, the Swedish chemical conglomerate, to assume yet another new corporate identity as AkzoNobel.

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