More jobs to China.

[bigrun]

Saw this story on ABC news last nite...Sure sounds fishy to me...


Wrench Inventor Claims Sears Stole His Idea, Took It to China.

In the small town of Cabot, Pa., Dan Brown is the proud inventor of the Bionic Wrench, a product made solely in Pennsylvania

This time last year, Brown's factory was buzzing, with his employees working overtime to fulfill holiday orders. With the help of Sears, Brown's company sold more than 200,000 wrenches at Christmas alone.

"Last year was a great year," Brown said. "We got ourselves on a commercial and Sears had us in stores. We were going crazy."

Brown says he agreed with Sears not to sell his bionic wrench to any other national chain such as Lowe's or Home Depot. Brown's company continued business this year but suddenly there was no deal from Sears for Christmas.

Brown had three production lines working to fill orders last year. But this year, there's only one running and he has had to lay off 30 workers.

"We were building at a forecast that Sears had given us, then they just cancelled it," Brown said. "We built so much ahead trying to avoid the overtime that we were going through in previous years that we got caught now."


Brown heard from a customer that there was now another wrench on the shelves at Sears with what appeared to be a similar mechanism. But this one, made in China, is sold under the Sears brand, Craftsman.

Brown wasn't surprised by the new wrench, he said.

"It's a knockoff. There's no question," he said. "If you take them apart and look at the plates, they're virtually the same. ... It's our patent. We've got it covered."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/MadeInAmeri...ry?id=17720122