Harley Davidson Lays Off 800 Ships Work to Thailand

[tay]

I suppose the USA does not need Trudeau's TPP..........

It’s regrettably a common occurrence these days. During the Obama to Trump transition, much was made about a deal cut by Trump to save jobs at the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sadly for the workers there, it was a pack of lies and called as much by Chuck Jones, president of USW Local 1999 and the union that the workers of the Carrier plant were members of, from the very start. None of these plant closings are novel. They’ve been happening since the 1970s as capital controls dropped along with trade barriers, allowing multinational corporations to move work to places where wages are low, workplace safety is nonexistent, and effective unions do not have the right to exist.

The Harley plant closure is especially a bitter pill to swallow, given that the company had been doing relatively well until recently. The reasons given for the plant closure (and the laying off of eight hundred workers) was a drop in net income caused largely by a 6.7% decline in sales last year. The ineffectual wad of centrist nonsense known as #TheResistance also seized on a statement blaming some of the earnings drop on changes caused by Trump’s tax cuts. It’s also a blow to scandal-wracked Governor of Missouri Eric Greitens. After his blackmailing of a woman he had an extramarital affair with came to light, a major plant closing is a wound his political career can ill-afford.

But there is another dimension to this that did not get reported in any of the coverage of this story that’s upending the lives of eight hundred workers. Back in September, the International Association of Machinists and United Steelworkers ended their labor-management partnership with Harley-Davidson over the company’s plan to build a plant in Thailand. The partnership agreement, two decades old and praised as a model by some, is the latest iteration of the ‘jointness’ trend first pioneered by UAW and General Motors in the 1980s. Focusing on collaboration and co-determination and informed by the European works council approach, these kinds of labor-management partnerships inevitably break down when the company wants to do something that will screw over its workers’ ability to organize, like it has here.

So while eight hundred workers will have their lives upended in Missouri, Harley-Davidson will plow ahead in standing up a brand new plant in Thailand. But why might they do that?

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https://thesouthlawn.org/2018/02/02/unionism-must-be-internationalist-or-it-is-bullshit/#more-2212

 

[Walter]

Quite the communist source.

 

[justlooking]

The answer is China and India.

The KC plant builds the 500cc and 750cc Street models.
They are built more for the BRIC countries than NA.
Production in Thailand to keep costs down, and better compete in those markets. Obviously.

But I'll bet Harley thought they would sell lots of little Harleys to the millennials in NA. Mistake.
So that's why they had production in the US, and are now moving it.

Big bikes go back to York, where they were before, and most if not all little Harleys will be in Thailand soon enough.
Then they will switch from using 'American parts and American steel' to Chinese components in a few maybe 5 -10 years.


Last point: our unionism must be internationalist or it is bullshit.

is just pure International Communism, and is exactly why most unions fully deserved to be broken up in the first place.

NA Union members should not be financing pie in the sky BS pipe dreams that somehow they are going to
influence military junta and dictatorship type governments in 3rd world shitholes.
Exactly why free trade with Mexico was and still is a huge mistake.
They are just immune to the Communism.
They don't give a flying f**k about their citizens, or about American unions, and they certainly
don't give 2 sh*ts about you and your SJW whining.

 

[Curious Cdn]

Maga!

 

[Curious Cdn]

As a Brit that I know who grew up driving BSAs, Norton Commandos and Triumphs likes to call them: "Hardly Dangerous"

 

[Hoid]

The only people who want a Harley are old men.

They have a new eBike that, if it catches on, might help them to get some customers in the door.

The Baby Boomers are dying and the Hawg is going with them.

 

[petros]

You are a mental hosebag because you are so easy.


American women are the fastest-growing part of the motorcycle business, buying more than 100,000 of them a year. Even though aging baby-boomer men, with money to spend and time on their hands, have played a big role in expanding the market in recent years, motorcycle companies are trying hard to woo women buyers.

So they are producing more motorcycles that are low to the ground — so women can plant their feet firmly at rest — with narrower seats and softer clutches, and adjusting handlebars and windshields to make bikes more comfortable for smaller riders.


They are selling more clothes, too, in bright colors and with rhinestones, rather than the standard-issue black and orange leather jackets. Even the skull motif that appears on some clothing sold at Harley outlets has undergone a friendly makeover to include wings and flowers. Suzuki last year introduced a new line of clothes called Suzuki Girl with tight-fitting riding jackets in pink and baby blue.

Few companies, though, are doing more than Harley in reaching out to this group. Its dealers hold frequent garage parties for women, to let them learn about bikes, including the best way to stand up a 750-pound motorcycle that has tipped over (crouch down, with the small of your back against the seat, and push up and back while holding onto the bike).

The efforts are paying off, though slowly. About 12 percent of all Harley motorcycle sales are to women, roughly 32,000 new bikes in 2006, compared with 4 percent in 1990, 9 percent in 1998 and 10.6 percent in 2003. Women will spend about $300 million on Harley bikes this year in the United States, not including accessories, riding gear and clothes.“I think 12 percent is just the beginning,” said Jerry G. Wilke, Harley-Davidson’s vice president for customer relationships and product planning. “The opportunities to cater to women are endless, and we will continue to do more.”

Harley-Davidson has begun a Web site aimed at women (harley-davidson.com/womenriders) and is advertising in women’s magazines with a striking black-and-white image of a rider using the chrome plating on a bike as a makeup mirror.