It's a global world out there anymore, and this recession is far from over. It's not a case of the company trying to bust the unions, or unions busting managment either. It's Wall Street greed and the fact that American business is now controlled by them, not the company. In order to keep the stock price up and attractive to investors you have to make these kind of crappy decisions anymore to show profitability and cash flow. It's adapt and overcome or die. What worries me is, is Harley getting to the point of becoming a candidate for buy-out ala AMF? We all know how that worked out for the company then. You think they're making tough decisions now, if they get bought out they could very easily move the majority of production operations off-shore.

 

Let me help....high labor costs, high benefits costs, high pension costs. These are all much higher than products made outside the US. If you want to support those higher expenses to have your motorcycle made in the US, you need to be prepared to "pay the piper".

 

More "Good OLD American jobs" headed for either India or Asia......

Ride In Peace....

 

I think "OLD" is the key word in that statement. Times and situations have changed, just like they have always changed. In order to succeed, companies and employees have to adapt. I am not trying to place blame on the unions, or anyone for that matter, but you can not continue to drive up for the cost of labor. Just like when you are selling something, you increase the price to what the market can bare. If you continue to raise the price past the point that consumers are willing to pay, or able to spend, no one buys your product. The union has done the same thing with the cost of labor. They have driven the price of labor past the point that companies are able to afford, and they are not willing to adjust their price for labor back to what the market will withstand.

It is like they would rather have 5 people employed at $50 an hour as opposed to 10 people at $25 an hour.

Just my thoughts

 

Instead of blaming the Unions for our economic decline, I'm more inclined to blame the politicians who allow jobs to be pulled out of this country by cheap foreign slave labor.

 

Yeah .... and it took a bankruptcy and nearly the complete collapse of the entire American Auto industry before the unions were forced to reduce the wages for new hires at GM. They are stick stuck with the legagcy retirement costs and it's still probably a 50:50 bet as to whether or not they will be intact 5 years from now. Had the unions not been on strike throughtout the 70's and 80's and made wage and benefit demands that crushed the car industry.

 

Cutting the labor force and overhead costs is a hard but necessary part of doing business. I have had to let several hundred folks go over the last two years, and it was not pleasant.

Unfortunatley this needs to happen to keep a company viable in rough times. If not done properly the company goes under and then everyone is out. Hopefully things will turn around in the next 20 months for everyone.

 

Amen bro. Any company that has a monopoly provider of a key input is in very deep trouble. That monopoly provider will keep the company barely alive by believing that they deserve the lions share of the profits. We see this already because the UAW is already agitating to roll back the concessions because the companies are profitable (horrors!)

 

There's much more to the near-collapse of the US auto (and motorcycle)industries than labor costs. Historically, labor cost for US auto workers has been about the same as their Japanese counterparts, and less than European auto workers. Direct labor accounts for only a fraction of the cost of an automobile. If you want to be an efficient and competitive manufacturer, you have to have efficient and competitive management with a culture of leadership and accountability. Unionized workers can be utilized efficiently and economically by good management, instead of being scape-goated for management's failures. Since Honda workers in China are striking for better pay and benefits, shouldn't they be dealt with in the same way that the protesters in Tianenmen Square were?

 

Sometimes in a company's restructuring efforts to get rid of the union worker is so non-union direct labor workers can learn to multi-task. In most union environment I've experienced, the union employee follows a fine line of job description and can't be ask to take on more responsibilities. Without the union workers, direct labor employees can take on hands on working lead-person positions that will cut out some supervisory and middle management positions.

Keeping stock holders happy unfortunately is the bottom line in a lot of cases.