Harley Davidson to become manufacturer of motorcycletas?

[buddha]

I know this will come as a shock to red-blooded American Harley riders but I heard a rumor and followed it up with a little internet research that Harley is looking to close its York, PA plant and move those operations to a site (as yet undisclosed) in Mexico. That would mean a loss of about 2,400 jobs in the York area but would also take a real American icon, the lone survivor, and move it where they can hire labor for $2.00 an hour.

Personally, I find this shocking. I'm really glad that I no longer own a HD scoot. But I'm curious to hear from my sly bros who ride what a move like this would mean to them if HD is currently their bike of choice.

And don't take my word for this. Google stuff like 'Harley Davidson moving to Mexico?', which is what I did. I saw NO mention of this in any mainstream media, mostly in biker forums. But, if it is, in fact, true, why has the media chosen to overlook this? I mean, wouldn't this count as NEWS?

[tomgallagher]

Just suppose you owned a company and had to make a decision as to which you would rather pay your employees, 20 dollars an hour or 2 dollars an hour. Companies stopped being driven by patriotism a long time ago, if ever.

[TheSlyBear]

Perhaps, but we're not talking about a toilet paper manufacturer.

Harley has built this entire mystique around "America Iron"! In this case, it's part of the rep and allure of the product.

[tomgallagher]

business is business.

[Mikekoz13]

I live just about an hour from the York plant. Rumors have circulated for about a year about them leaving and moving to another STATE in the USA. Those rumors ended a few months ago when HD and the union reached agreement on a whole host of issues.

My personal feeling for the last few years has been that HD never wanted to leave the York plant but they were basically using that as a bargaining chip to break/weaken the union.
If you read about some of the ways money is being pissed away in that plant because of union rules you might be a little shocked. Supposedly the new agreement put an end to most of those things.

One thing about HD.... they know that their bread and butter is the American Iron image. They would alienate a large part of their core customer group by moving outside of the USA. I don't think it will ever happen. I DO think that they may limit stock to dealers to driv e prices up similar to the early to late 90's. I think that smaller, less profitable dealerships may bite the dust too.

I am an HD guy... I love them for a lot of reasons. Would moving to Mexico change my mind about them? I'll say I just don't know for sure.

[TheSlyBear]

business is business.

Meaningless in this context. Fucking over workers in order to grow a business is just "business". But a business decision that undermines the entire marketing message and success point of a product isn't a particularly good one.

No one cares where toilet paper is made. Harley's are quite a different story.

[tomgallagher]

Hopefully you won't have to find out. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't gotten those concessions from the unions.? IMO, when it comes to "going out of business" I don't think it much matters weather it is toilet paper or motorbikes.

[Sgt. Pate]

I agree that it's bad but... you just about have to boycott every big business in America, move to the mountains and grow/raise your own food.  Seriously, what business sincerely cares about anything except making money anymore.  They don't care about their employees or this country.  It's pretty darn bad.  

[Nonick]

Yeah, so much is made overseas it's disgusting.  I think back when Sam Walton was alive and Wal-Mart was the "buy American" place, even though they had overseas stuff in their stores at that time. 

Now, it's mostly overseas. 

This reminded me of an email I got about buying American stuff with stimulus money.  I think the end result was spend money at yard sales, go to ball games, hire a prostitute, drink domestic beer and get tatoos.  Put them all together and you got: Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day!   

[dawgfan]

Gallagher is right - business is business. 

Unions and taxes...enough said. 

[buddha]

Do ya like working 8 hour days and having your weekends off?

THANK A F**KING UNION!

Slamming unions does not go over big with me. Period.

[Mikekoz13]

I wasn't slamming any Unions. I was just stating the facts in the HD case where the Union was involved. I think Unions were essential at on one time in American history. PERSONALLY I believe they have outlived their usefullness. There are more than enough labor laws to keep companies in check these days without Unions.
Unions and their ideas were the basis for many of those labor laws, so they did in fact serve a VERY useful purpose at one time.

One of the big problems HD had with the Union in York was that the Union would allow NO cross training of employees. For example, if a guy was a painter and this week there was no painting to be done, HD wanted to have him cross trained to perform another task (say work on the line) until more painting was needed. This way that painter would actually be earning his pay instead of sitting around and collecting a check until more painting was needed. In my opinion, this is good business.
The Union wanted that same painter to be able to sit around and get paid until more painting was required. The only logical reason that I can think of for this is so that the UInion can have more people working in that plant, thus more members for the Union. Good for the Union but bad for the business.

[tomgallagher]

That about sums it up Mike. Way back in the day when the workers were taking it up the arse unions were necessary but nowadays the unions have turned it around and are sticking it to the companies i.e. making them pay for painters to sit around all day and get paid for it.

[Nonick]

Mike, I see your point and actually used to think like you; that the unions have outlived their usefullness, but you still need a watchdog over companies.  Granted, unions can go to extremes like you mentioned, and moderation is the key to most things in life.  Just the other day, I was reading about some companies being named as wanting to legitimize illegals so they could have cheap labor:
http://www.numbersusa.com/hub?action=route&rid=3833&jid=593194&tid=1021706&lid=9

I don't know where that is going to end up.  It seems that liberals want them for the votes and businesses want them for the cheap labor, and the only ones stopping this action may be the average citizen and possibly unions.  
Also, if you want to see a cheap imported copy of an HD, there are already plenty out there.  I think I saw some at the local Pep Boys auto parts store.  

[dawgfan]

I wasn't necessarily "slamming" unions.  In my opinion they lead to increased costs that are of course passed on to the consumer - much like taxes.  I agree with Koz, there are enough labor laws these days that keep corporations in line.  Here is some interesting information regarding labor unions.

•   Studies typically find that unionized companies earn profits between 10 percent and 15 percent lower than those of comparable non-union firms.
 
•   Unions win higher wages for their members, though many do not. But with these higher wages, unions bring less investment, fewer jobs, higher prices, and smaller 401(k) plans for everyone else.
 
•   Final union contracts typically give workers group identities instead of treating them as individuals. Unions do not have the resources to monitor each worker's performance and tailor the contract accordingly. Even if they could, they would not want to do so. Unions want employees to view the union--not their individual achievements--as the source of their economic gains.
 
•   Consequently, union contracts compress wages: They suppress the wages of more productive workers and raise the wages of the less competent. Unions redistribute wealth between workers.
 
•   A better summary of the economic research is that unions do not increase workers' wages by nearly as much as they claim and that, at a number of companies, they do not raise wages at all.
 
•   In essence, unions "tax" investments that corporations make, redistributing part of the return from these investments to their members. This makes undertaking a new investment less worthwhile. Companies respond to the union tax in the same way they respond to government taxes on investment--by investing less.
 
•   Research shows that unions directly cause firms to reduce their investments. In fact, investment drops sharply after unions organize a company. One study found that unionizing reduces capital investment by 30 percent--the same effect as a 33 percentage point increase in the corporate tax rate
 
•   The balance of economic research shows that unions do not just happen to organize firms with more layoffs and less job growth: They cause job losses. Most studies find that jobs drop at newly organized companies, with employment falling between 5 percent and 10 percent.

While the unions gave us the “40 hour workweek”, you don’t often find highly successful people who only work 40 hours a week.  PERSONALLY, I feel that the 40 hour work week is a concept for those who pursue mediocrity.