Posted on 08/13/2005 11:19:39 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
INDIANAPOLIS - DaimlerChrysler AG will close its Indianapolis foundry and eliminate 881 jobs by Sept. 30, reducing the automaker's once formidable Indiana manufacturing presence to just the city of Kokomo.
DaimlerChrysler recently notified the Indiana Department of Workforce Development of the closure under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act. The law requires employers to give 60 days notice before certain plant closings and layoffs. The loss of 881 jobs is the largest in Indiana under WARN this year.
A provision in the four-year labor agreement struck by the automaker and the United Auto Workers in 2003 called for the foundry to close by the end of the third quarter of 2005, company spokeswoman Curtrise Garner said Friday.
"The company and union jointly agreed to that," she said by telephone from DaimlerChrysler's U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich.
News reports at the time of the labor agreement said DaimlerChrysler would phase out the foundry over four years. The plant along Interstate 70 west of downtown Indianapolis produces V-6 and V-8 engine blocks.
UAW Local 550 represents workers at the foundry. Local President James Clark had little to say about the closure when asked for comment Friday. The affected workers, most of whom now live in Indianapolis, have been offered jobs at a variety of other DaimlerChrysler plants, he said.
Workers who choose to transfer to another DaimlerChrysler plant instead of retiring receive 95 percent of their base pay after taxes until a new job is found for them, Garner said.
Department of Workforce Development agency officials will meet with DaimlerChrysler representatives next Thursday to discuss state job assistance to the affected workers, agency spokesman Kip Chase said.
The plant was owned by American Foundry Co. until Chrysler bought it in 1946. The automaker invested in major upgrades there in 1964, 1978, 1988, and the late 1990s.
The closing will diminish DaimlerChrysler's presence in Indiana to Kokomo, where three transmission plants and an aluminum casting plant employ about 7,500 workers. The automaker spun off its 1,400-worker New Castle machine shop to a joint venture three year ago, ending a 96-year history in the eastern Indiana city where the high school still bears the Chrysler name.
The notice to the state of 881 jobs being lost topped Indiana's largest previous WARN job loss this year, for 613 jobs eliminated with the June closure of Tower Automotive's auto frame assembly plant in Corydon.
Actually, you're very welcome guys. If everyone agreed with me, oh what a sad world!
Nor can we assume they are less smart.
Ha!
What is striking about these threads is that they list the problems, but never the solutions. Keeping that in mind, I'd like to throw out some suggestions:
A)An emphasis on highly specialized skills and education to acquire those skills.
B)An emphasis on artisan type manufacturing of high-value stuff.
C)A new model for small businesses that allows for these firms to do business internationally without the high cost of overhead.
All non revenue producing occupations are expendable these days, and your occupation is right up there among those getting targeted for outsourcing. You might want to think twice about your rosy future because you are just one reorganization away from the unemployment line.
Cheers.
They are not less smart. In fact, they're very bright. But they aren't smarter than we are, not by a long ways.
I don't worry about our best and brightest on the world stage. It's the rest of us that may be in trouble.
Nonsense.
The fact is, trade collapsed simply because consumers couldn't afford to pay the higher transportation costs on imported items. Heck, it was even difficult getting domestic production going because many consumers couldn't even afford that.
B)An emphasis on artisan type manufacturing of high-value stuff.
This works for big businesses, but most American workers (something like 85%) work for small businesses which support the bigger industries. I don't mean just in support in terms accounting, legal, etc., but in manufacturing that supports the big boys; someone's gotta make the machines and gadgets and widgets that make the machines, and this is typically small business, and this is still non-artisan type manufacturing.
C)A new model for small businesses that allows for these firms to do business internationally without the high cost of overhead.
Forget a new model, just get the fed to rollback restrictive regulations, e.g. OSHA, EPA, EOE, etc., and to cut taxes. That would be plenty.
"Ah, the supplanting sarcasm in hopes someone will accept it for substance approach.."
No, it's called a joke.
"In related news, India was thrilled today to hear that Chrysler is opening a new plant near New Delhi, expected to employ close to 1,000 workers.....AT A FRACTION OF THE COST MR UNION GUY! I don't know if the first part of this is true or not, prolly not as I just pulled it out of thin air. The second part? Happens all the time. Union demands eventually cause companies to close up shop and move elsewhere. I have seen it in my family.
The manufacturing stuff is going in a hurry. The commodity type items, like paper plates, plastic doo-dads and even computer chips are leaving and not coming back.
Regulations aren't the problem or the entire problem. If you cut all regulations you could maybe increase profits by 20% (number pulled out of the air). That still isn't enough.
The real problem for small business is getting their stuff out on the market worldwide. The internet has done some of this, but not a lot. And most small business owners don't have the money or the expertise to deal internationally.
I can tell you where free trade greatly helped a couple of Dayton, OH companies: they now do a computer business directly on-line examining and inspecting pipelines of Latin Am. and East Bloc oil providers. Those jobs did not exist before--and they are cutting-edge, very highly paid jobs.
"Homorama"
Sounds like a gay theme park.
A 20% increase in revenues would help with this...
cool...
Hahaha, Actually I misspelled it. It's "Home-arama." But you know, we might think about trade-marking that name!
Most small business owners I know would pocket most of the 20% the first year, buy a couple new computers and maybe hire one or two more temps. It wouldn't serve to really expand their businesses.
What the small manufacturer really needs is someone to guide him into new markets in Europe and Asia. He needs to be able to learn to do deals for distribution in those countries, handle shipping at a reasonable cost and deal with things like promotion, tarriffs, liability, etc. etc. etc.
I've given this some thought and it seems that this is something that trade associations can undertake and even make some profit from...
How a small business owner handles profits is up to him of course, but it should be within the constraints of his business plan; if doing business in international waters was a component of a sound business plan, and if he is adhering to his plan, he should have no problems.
I would point out that investing in resources IS growth, and that no small business owner should delude himself into thinking he is going to get rich overnight.
My point is that most small business owners don't include international markets in their business plan because they don't have the expertise or can't afford it or both.
Take a typical guy making high end wood tables. He's got maybe a half dozen people working for him making the tables. Perhaps he has forty or fifty stores in the U.S. he deals with and puts ads in a couple of magazines, like the New Yorker for direct sales.
So, how does this guy expand into the dozens of high end shops springing up in China? How does he ship the stuff there? What kind tariffs is he dealing with? How do the banks work? Letters of credit? Exchange rates. Labeling. Promotional material. All very basic stuff, but requiring different types of expertise.
I see your point and it goes back to a sound business plan and due diligence. He should do the research if he even CAN make money selling overseas. If shipping, tariffs, customs, etc. make it non-profitable, he shouldn't do it. But there are trade organizations, and (I shudder to say this) trade atttorneys that can help determine how/if to do this.
"Foundry operation is a skill acquired by doing. This is not the kind of thing the country should allow to disappear since the foundry industry is far from dead worldwide."
No, it's a "buggy whip" industry. These pathetic 19th century Americans will have to be re-trained to do... something. I can't believe all the smugness going on here about our countrymen losing their jobs. Even if they are EVIL union workers.
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