Another huge General Motors plant nearby closes

[David Burgess]

The General Motors Willow Run plant officially closes on Thursday. It was originally built by Ford. The largest building in the complex, 1.2 miles long, was once called "the largest room in the history of man". At its peak, during the Second World War when bombers were produced there, it employed 42 thousand people. Over the years, General Motors produced more than 82 million automatic transmissions there, along with many other automotive components. Later today, maybe I can get an idea of how much of this manufacturing has left the country.

As the plant was winding down over the last several years, the local school district discontinued its music program. The Cleveland Orchestra was recently on strike, and the Detroit Symphony has been on strike since early October.

That 1.2 mile long building is for sale, cheap, if anyone wants to open a really large fiddle shop.

[Berl Mendenhall]

David,

Wasn't there an old saying. "As General Motors goes so goes the economy".

Berl

[saintjohnbarleycorn]

history marches on even if we don't like it, a friend of mine works for boeing that makes defense stuff. 60% of the workforce actually does no physical labor in building things. How can any manufacturing business survive, unless you are paying the people working on penny an hour?

[JimMurphy]

Another huge General Motors plant nearby closes What does it all mean for the fiddle business?

Although the loss of many well-paying jobs may seem like 'bad news', when we "crunch the numbers" we see with unemployment compensation, subsidized mortgages and plenty of time for these ex-employees to 'shop', perhaps the next 99+ weeks won't be so bad for local fiddle business.

A lot can happen in 99 weeks. [i'm an Optimist!! ]

Jim

[Ken_N]

Just up the road from David, I have a more insider view since I work as a machinist in the industry. Since February 2009 I was laid off 14 months (did get jobs to cover the last 5 months) and have been working steady since September. The company I work for is a small division of a huge forging company that over the last few years has become much less huge. Our division has been lucky to be small enough to do quick makeovers and react to the changing economy. The parent company was lucky enough to get loans to help over the last year. The last place I worked at before getting called back had no credit, very little cash, and under bid and over promised every quote, just for the chance. That shop might have been good before the crunch. The place I work now went from 20-40 million in sales and 16% profit when I started to 20-40 million in sales and losses the last couple of years. This year they have almost 100 million in sales and 10% profit. Next year they expect it to grow more. How did they do it. Some of their core customers have increased volume. We even ship to Mexico for an Asian company! Every company that folded opened up opportunity for them. Their pay scale is lower, though they still cringe at the pay of journeymen like me. But having me there reduces their tool costs because things get done so much faster, and right. I think there is a sweet spot where the company gets it's best return. The right amount of sales, workers, management. Too small and it's hard to squeeze tight enough. Too large and waste is everywhere. They do use some of the tactics getting to be more common. Force people to work 12 hour shifts and weekends, to cut down on personnel. I don't understand this, but it is a fact. The whole do more with less thing. I think most of the large companies are just too big. Too many middle men, too much bulk to be fast enough to react to the economy, much less direct it. Their biggest fault is greed. Always growing, always making more, always the guys at the bottom pulling the money out of their pockets. They think they have a right to expect people to work for nothing if people in China will. But they won't. Isn't a $1mill. base salary enough, you need a bonus as well? I don't even want to think about the snakes running the financial sector. What is wrong with being steady? Sure you have to change, but why do you have to grow so much?

Ken

[Don Noon]

That 1.2 mile long building is for sale, cheap, if anyone wants to open a really large fiddle shop.

Maybe a factory for bass production? The photo looks like one of those double-mirrored infinite repeating things.

[fiddlecollector]

Its exactly the same in the UK,manufacturering is dwinding out and all the jobs are so called `service` industries.

I wonder what would happen if there was another world war and all these skills have been lost . Our government even goes on about producing more apprenticeship schemes for manufacturering,i think once you go so far in one direction then its very difficult to reverse it.

If we continue to import everything and transfer our manufacturing bases to Asia then we are just digging ourselves in a huge hole.

[Michael_Molnar]

"For whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

[joerobson]

"For whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

I my mind the loss of jobs is significant and painful to many, but in the long run there is a greater loss: the idea that a person can make a living at a trade...using their brains and using their hands for something other than punching a keyboard [he says, punching a keyboard]. I was an independent cabinetmaker for 20 years, of the self-taught generation of the 70's. The cabinet trade in the US virtually died as a result of WWII. Only now is there a shadow of it returning and most of that is CNC #%&&**!!.....It takes only one generation to lose the skill, knowledge, self-determination, and self-respect it takes to learn a trade and do it well.

rant over.

Joe

[Roger Hill]

We've had union leaders negotiating for reduced productivity for decades and management giving in to that on the theory that the American people would buy whatever they sold. The union leaders have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, we now have talented American workers who are more expensive per unit of output than ten unskilled foreign workers. The only industries in serious trouble are those that are unionized, and now they are seeking government bailouts for their health and pension programs. In my travels, I've seen plenty of guys wearing jackets that say "UAW" but none in jackets that say "Ford." Loyalty to ones employer rather than to the adversary of ones employer seems to work for most Americans, but not in the geographic areas in the greatest trouble. It really doesn't take any great genius to see the problem, but a great deal of suffering will be required to correct the problem. Union workers have my sympathy for they are the ones who will suffer the most as the problem is corrected, as the market place will force it to be. The solution is not to try to force the American consumer to pay more for what he buys, but to make the American worker more productive. That will require a great capital investment in new technologies and a tax structure that encourages investment. It will also require a lot of worker retraining to use those technologies and telling the truth to a lot of workers: they are going to have to re-train and/or relocate and/or accept a lower wage commensurate with the value they can produce. Trying to punish the rich who put up the investment for this to happen isn't going to help. I've got on my asbestos suit, go ahead and take your best shot............

[David Burgess]

What about Federal workers? Aren't they paid, on average, twice what private sector workers are paid?

[MWard]

The folk singer Utah Phillips used to say something like this when talking about why he would not let the big time Nashville cats record his songs, which would have brought him a lot of money:

"I want to make a living, not a killing. What's wrong with making a living? Why does everyone want to make a killing? That's what's wrong now--- so many want to make a killing that the few who want to make a living suffer because of it."

I think that may be exactly what happened....so many people wanted to make a killing....

But those Chinese student fiddles are less expensive....

[Roger Hill]

yes, and at lower levels, they are represented by one of the largest unions in the US. I'd be quite happy to replace a large fraction of them with off-shore workers at 10% of the price. Not exactly sure how we would do that once the TSA is unionized, but I'll continue thinking about the problem

[David Burgess]

yes, and at lower levels, they are represented by one of the largest unions in the US. I'd be quite happy to replace a large fraction of them with off-shore workers at 10% of the price. Not exactly sure how we would do that once the TSA is unionized, but I'll continue thinking about the problem

Oh great! I call my Congressman, and someone with a barely understandable heavy foreign accent answers,

"Hello, this is US Government Customer Service. Ben(jabari Pinjab) speaking. Will you spell your name please?"

[Michael_Molnar]

Back in 1970 I got my first job out of graduate school. I was a post-doc working as a contractor at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt MD. I was making $10,500 per year and I was happy with that. There were two colleagues with nearly identical credentials who had the same job but as government workers. They were making $14,000 with better benefits.

[JimMurphy]

Oh great! I call my Congressman, and someone with a barely understandable heavy foreign accent answers,

"Hello, this is US Government Customer Service. Ben(jabari Pinjab) speaking. Will you spell your name please?"

Comrade Burgess,

That's why Global governance is sooooooo important to completing our "fundamental transformation". [Or so I'm told. ]

Jim

[Roger Hill]

Oh great! I call my Congressman, and someone with a barely understandable heavy foreign accent answers,

"Hello, this is US Government Customer Service. Ben(jabari Pinjab) speaking. Will you spell your name please?"

Well, David, if you're calling the government every day then you're part of the problem. On the other hand, I've had to call tech support on software problems I couldn't find the fix to on Google perhaps three times in the last five years. All three times someone in India helped me and all three times they resolved the problem in short order. Maybe we want to hire Bill Gates to handle assistance calls for social security benefits. Boy, will that one cause a stink, what with Gates getting rich on the backs of laid off government clerks..........nah, never happen

[Adam Edwards]

I chart the world Indicies , and from where I stand the global economies are set for another massive decline. I suspect that the US will be in a depression by the end of it ( 3 or so years time ) . I also think the coming riots in the US will equal or be greater than Ireland . the Fed can keep printing money but the falling dollar will be the death of the financial system as we now it today .

America will survive all this and come out the other side , but WORLD DOMINANCE will be lost.

My advice to you guys, hedge between Aussie dollar, Swiss franc and gold

[David Burgess]

All three times someone in India helped me and all three times they resolved the problem in short order.

Ah, my experiences have been quite different. Each time, I concluded that it would have been less painful and more productive just to shoot myself.

[James M. Jones]

U Utah Bruce Phillips the golden voice of the great south west IWW Man all the way never thought I'd hear reffrence to him on the MN of all places! kinda grew up around the guy '... taught me the difference between hobos bums and tramps said " saying every one deserves a job Is like saying every one deserves a boss! Jobs yes but as stepping stones to where we own the tools of our production. Honstly... most my one liners came from Bruce thanks for the memories! she likes it like this!

[gowan]

Back in 1970 I got my first job out of graduate school. I was a post-doc working as a contractor at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt MD. I was making $10,500 per year and I was happy with that. There were two colleagues with nearly identical credentials who had the same job but as government workers. They were making $14,000 with better benefits.

You were a "post-doc", really a glorified intern, so this isn't a fair comparison. I've known plenty of federal employees who could make a lot more money in the private sector but chose federal employment for stability and better benefits. The real problem here is the profit motive and greed. Companies pursue profit at the expense of worker welfare, consumers pursue low prices at the expense of driving US manufacturing overseas. Don't forget what life was like in the US before worker unionization: below-living wages, firing on a whim of the employer, no benefits, etc., etc. The unions aren't the source of the problems, the opressive and greedy employers are just as much to blame.

[Bruce Carlson]

The General Motors Willow Run plant officially closes on Thursday. It was originally built by Ford. The largest building in the complex, 1.2 miles long, was once called "the largest room in the history of man". At its peak, during the Second World War when bombers were produced there, it employed 42 thousand people. Over the years, General Motors produced more than 82 million automatic transmissions there, along with many other automotive components. Later today, maybe I can get an idea of how much of this manufacturing has left the country.

As the plant was winding down over the last several years, the local school district discontinued its music program. The Cleveland Orchestra was recently on strike, and the Detroit Symphony has been on strike since early October.

That 1.2 mile long building is for sale, cheap, if anyone wants to open a really large fiddle shop.

The mind boggles just to think of the heating bill in cold Michigan!!

Bruce

[David Burgess]

Don't forget what life was like in the US before worker unionization: below-living wages, firing on a whim of the employer, no benefits, etc., etc.

Yes and no. Since this plant was built by Ford, I'll mention that pre-union Henry Ford hired factory workers at unheard of wages, sufficient that people showed up from all 48 states, Puerto Rico, and Mexico for jobs. A local shoe store at the time spoke of people hired who had never worn shoes before, and needed to be taught how to walk in them.

Later, when union pressure started to be strong, ol' weird Henry threatened to shut down the factories if they became unionized. Unions have also done a lot of good.

Consider this though: A number of foreign auto manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes, and VW) assemble cars in the US. None of the plants are near Detroit, and none are unionized.

Detroit may have priced itself out of the market. Everything in moderation.....

[gowan]

Yes and no. Since this plant was built by Ford, I'll mention that Henry Ford hired factory workers at unheard of wages, sufficient that people showed up from all 48 states, Puerto Rico, and Mexico for jobs. A local shoe store at the time spoke of people hired who had never worn shoes before, and needed to be taught how to walk in them.

Later, when union pressure started to be strong, ol' weird Henry threatened to shut down the factories if they became unionized. Unions have also done a lot of good.

Consider this though: A number of foreign auto manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes, and VW) assemble cars in the US. None of the plants are near Detroit, and none are unionized.

Certainly unions have been greedy and over-reached. As for the "foreign" manufacturers, they have to build in the US or their cars would become so expensive people wouldn't buy them. And if they didn't treat the workers well the workers would unionize. So we have to keep some unions in order to keep a rein on the employers.

[David Burgess]

No doubt about the current benefit of unions, even if they sometimes only provide perspective, and greater opportunity for for others.

Let's say you own a transportation business, and it's on the brink of going under. You can hire a union truck driver, along with the pay scale, knowing that if you mess up in the slightest, the union will come after you.

At the same time, there are hundreds of good ol' Southern boys who will line up for the job, are quite willing to drive 25 hours per day, will take the truck apart and put it back together again if needed, and will have a jolly ol' time doing it. As a business owner, what will you do, and what is your responsibility to keep employing the people you already have, as opposed to going under?