Watched that happen when they finally shut the doors on us , they where doing the same thing except doling out our work force to other blood sucking companies that been waiting for the plant to close knowing 4000 experienced and hungry people where about to hit the streets .I know of at least 50 people who lost their lives over this bullshit through taking their own or stress induced issues like heart attacks over a 3 month period and doesn't include the 10 that died on the job in the months leading up to our closing after it was announced . That's the butcher's bill on the human side of this , peoples lives are shattered and the high brows try very hard to over look this little fact .

Sad part was I talked to the remaining VP the day I walked and asked the guy if the we ( the union ) had folded and gave the company everything they wanted would it have changed anything . Man looked me in the eyes and stated flatly " NO " the closing had been planned for over 4 yrs all the games where just a ploy to cut operational costs till then . That's the reality of labor in the US people it isn't the big bad unions killing off business .

 

My point was that Harley's basic problem is sinking sales. To combat this they are reshuffling, cutting personnel, closing plants, all in order to keep their profit line up.

As for me personally, my bike is 7 years old, an '05 I bought in the Fall of '04. Even though I can afford a new one, I won't buy one because my bike is rock-solid reliable and performs better than a new model, without all the attendant issues. So, you and I, and others like us, are part of Harley's problem, not its solution. We're satisfied with what we have, which means Harley has to go after new riders here and expand operations overseas, things that always bring criticism on this forum as well.

Bottom line, they're not listening to us anyway. They've got their plans strategies and they are going to follow them. If they work, Harley will survive. If they don't, Harley won't. In either case, my life, and yours, will go on.

 

Harley as a company alienated me a long time ago while I love the bikes I'll have nothing to do with the corporate entity or the ******** the dealers have been forced into being ever again , they killed my love affair in the early 80's . I have watched them move from a struggling family owned US based company into the international monster it has and it hasn't been pretty they lost everything that company was founded on along with a good number of the base customers they had . Don't think a lot of the new base is going to stick with them with the coming changes I see on the horizon , know I wouldn't . Doubt I'll look at another of their machines past the Evo line .

 

You are correct that our lives, ( and old bikes,) will go on.

But I disagree with the premise that declining sales was the cause of all the cutting, butchering and re-finagling. That's just the excuse this time around.

Harley, like Twizted's VP, intended to do this even if they'd sold every bike they could possibly have produced. They would only have made that much more money with the new management style than they really did with the actual slow down. There was talk about reducing Dealers 'way' back in '06, when I was still in the business. It's apparently the 'new' American way.

The workers would have been no better off regardless.

 

Well here's a happy tune to cheer as all up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWRfBZY-ng

 

I have no doubt that if the shareholders believed they could make a few % more they'd vote to ship everything to China.

 

agreed...that's what they should do! just let me buy some stock first.........