Sayonara Twinkies!!

[Spectre711]

I just pulled this off of Wikipedia and was surprised of all of the brands that are affected.

At the time of Hostess's liquidation, these were its brands in the United States:

• Baker's Inn
• Beefsteak
• Blue Ribbon
• Bread du Jour
• Butternut Breads
• Colombo
• Cotton’s
• Di Carlo
• Dolly Madison
• Drake's
• Dutch Hearth
• Eddy’s
• Good Hearth
• Holsom
• Home Pride
• Hostess
• J.J. Nissen
• Merita
• Millbrook
• Mrs. Cubbison's Foods
• Nature's Pride
• Parisian
• Standish Farms
• Sweetheart
• Twinkie
• Toscana
• Wonder Bread

[ChesshireCat]

Big joke, Twinkies...what about the other products such as Wonder Bread for instance? Another case of the blasted unions putting folks out of work for their own selfish purposes.

it's rather obvious that you only know what FOX news tells you to believe. That's a lot more to the issue than unions.

* how many folks here raise a family on $11 an hour? Max wage in those bakerys was $15, but most were under $13 an hour.

* the company wants to sell the company, but it's pretty hard to do so when your profit margins are weak. The easiest was to help the situation is to reduce labor costs (note they never offered to cut management's wage package). Take the 8% wage cut as well as the 8% cut in the benifit package (was very weak anyway)and you got nothing.

* Management has been caught with their hands in the pension fund very recently, and offered to replace the stolen funds within three years if the acceptted the wage and benifit cuts. Now it looks like certain folks in management will be doing hard time in jail for theft. (the Fed frowns on stealing money out of pension funds)

So with the above in mind lets look at the little guy working for less than $13 an hour and tring to survive with a wife and a kid or two. He's already on food stamps at you and mine expense. The best meals his children get each day is at school. Their Christmass shopping is done at Gooodwill. These folks will now draw unemployment at your expense due to corporate greed. Sure the market level for Twinkies has dropped considerably over the last few years (my doctor has banned them!) But it's kinda wrong in my eyes to use a person surviving in sub poverty levels to make a gain for yourself. I'm not a union person per say, but like to think of myself as a people person. These folks have kids, and pay taxes just like the rest of you do. All they want to do is to go to work and survive. Fox News could care less as they are on the side of the big guy with his feet propped up on a desk smoking $20 Padrone cigars one right after another. $27,000 a year is pocket change in today's world, and we should all be ashamed for allowing this to happen.

gary

[ChesshireCat]

Another uninformed person that that looks at any excuse to blame a union. Oh...those poor wealthy execs pushed around by those nasty unions. The company was Blained. It was pushed out of business intentionally by venture capitalists. They, the execs, bought a financialy weak company, bled the company dry and drove it purposely into debt and then bankruptcy. Before the threat to close the company the several top company officers more than doubled their salaries in the last year amounting to several millions of dollars pulled out of the company. They borrowed money, took huge salary increases then threatend closure. Previous to this, the employees took pay and benefit consessions to help save the company. The management was going to shut it down regardless, they had no intention of trying to keep it a viable business. They just used the unions as an excuse and a lot of people like you believe.

read my post!

glt

[ChesshireCat]

Crazy Don, I should suppose you're probably right, it's seldom one way. None the less, I have personal experience having been 1 of 42,000 people put out of work by a strike, and a fine airline went down. I'm sure mgmt may have contributed somewhat, but it was the hide bound union bosses that wouldn't believe the company was in the fragile financial condition it was in.

maybe you ought to try working in a mass production bakery for about a month. Be thinking 110 degree heat without the slightest chance to take five minutes to goto the bathroom! And oh yes at $11.00 and hour!!!! Those people didn't even ask for a wage increase or even a benifit increase, but management wanted to sweeten the package to help the place sell easier.

gary

[ChesshireCat]

Got any proof of all of this? Seems like it's a case of he said she said to me. I would be interested to see who is saying the truth. But to call someone "another uninformed person" without provided real information is a little uncalled for. 'Cause from my perspective, your point of view looks like another uninformed person looking for any excuse to blame the big evil execs and venture capitalist for pushing around those poor union workers. Not saying you're wrong, just not tactful.

Bill

you just proved that your not informed about their situation. The $12 an hour wage is actually on the high side for the most part. Half of the employees make less than that. Their so called benifit package is a joke! They pay into their pension fund just like you do. Their health insurance is close to worthless, and in the end you and I foot the bill. Their kids get their best meals at school. But rest assured if somebody wanted you to take an 8% cut in wages and also another 8% cut in benifits you'd be screaming like a scalded cat.

gary

Edited November 17, 2012 by ChesshireCat

[TaiidanTomcat]

So glad I caught this!!

Who would have thought that the decisive battle that settles Management Vs Union would be settled on the internet once and for all and on ARC to boot!!

So glad we finally put this issue to rest after this internet battle royale!

Caption: White House refreshes minute by minute to see decisive ARC General Discussion Battle on Unions/Twinkie thread.

Lotta tension, I don't think anyone is getting to bed before 4AM

[ChesshireCat]

I

Union rep quoted in my morning paper says unions took significant wage and benefit reductions in 2004 when the company first declared Chapter 11. The company was to put the savings into marketing and capital investment. Didn't do it. Instead started padding management salaries and pension funds. The inference was that the management plan all along was to let the company slowly die to punish the union and its workers, that chapter 11 was just a delay, and that management was more interested in getting what it could out of the company as long as they could keep it afloat. After asking rank and file workers to take concessions, they gave huge management raises. The did pull back from this after financial media reported it and folks became outraged.

So, I don't know. Unions can really hurt a company by making it non-competitive due to labor costs, especially in an internationally competitive arena where there is not a level playing field. Just look at the 80's American auto industry. Money that went into salaries and benefits for UAW workers resulted in lower vehicle quality as management was forced to use cheaper materials and construction techniques. They managed to fight back somewhat in the 90's when the economy was good. But still, with American cars, we are still living with some of the "cost cutting/quality marginalizing" methods adopted by American companies during those years as the methods have become institutionalized. Even today, generally speaking, IMO, GM or Ford still does not put out a vehicle of the same level of quality as even Hyundai, who entered the domestic market in 1986,, much less Honda or Toyota.

On the other hand, unbridled capitalist management types, who sometimes view labor impersonally as just a business expense, and their biggest one at that, will often try to reduce it by any legal means necessary. This view, although profitable in the short term and perhaps popular with shareholders, can wreck a company in the long run. These are the same folks who refuse to invest improvement capitol until the last possible moment, and try to squeeze out every margin they can. They are also the same folks responsible for having two checkout lanes open at your local Wal-Mart while 20 people are waiting in line, or having "self checkout" lanes, where one employee watches four automated registers......extra profit, lower customer service. Having said that, for most folks, price still rules over quality and customer service. People so often thing short term.

I've been inside most all the bigger automotive plants at one time or another, and your post is far from correct. The most productive production worker on this planet is a UAW worker in a car plant. This isn't my view, but from folks a lot smarter than I am. Here's one of my favorite examples: In 1980 a guy cutting gears ran two Barber Coleman hobs that cut five gears at a time in 180 seconds. He also ran two Fellows gear shapers that cut a very large gear in about 40 minutes. He deburred all these gears and cleaned them after shaving the smaller gears. Guy stayed very busy, and even ran the machines thru his lunch period and brakes at about $8 an hour. Now that same guy runs a gear cell with five G&L hobs, one CNC lathe, and two deburr machines (other guy hand deburred each gear). He now cuts 3 gears (similar to the others) on each machine every 50 seconds. The working tolarence is about half of what it used to be. People that build gear cutting machines are often stunned at the quality and production rates (I was). Figuring the new guy's wages at $24 an hour you would find out that the company now has less than 1/5th the labor cost in the finished product. Fox news won't tell you that part! By the way there are cells like this all over the place.

Here's another example: We all know what an automatic transmission looks like. Lets take the main case (the outside housing that we see when we build a model car or truck). In the 1970's they cut them on very large transfer machines that often had eight to ten men working on them and maintaining them at about $6 an hour. Spit a housing out every three minutes; even though you actually need about 1/3rd of what it could produce. So you only ran it two shifts a day and pulled maintance on it on the third. Now they cut a similar case in a machining cell (called an FMS sytem). The machine centers are fed with robotic cars and cut a case every twenty minutes or so. There is one person loading and unloading the robotic cars and one person running all the machinery. Plus another person rebuilding all the spent tooling. The machines are programed to run at 100%, and it takes an act of congress to run one of them at 90%. The window of tolarence is less than half of what it used to be. The production folks never dreamed up this concept, but a process engineer did. They just run it. You now have more money in the transmission case than before, but better quality. These machines have to be rebuilt about every four years, and will go thru eight spindle rebuilds in that span. The production guy didn't buy the equipment; he just runs it.

The average non domestic automobile made in this country has about 12% labor cost in it (some are more and others are less). The average UAW car or truck is well under 10% and in a few cases less than 7%. In the late 1970's the White House forced the big three corporations in to a so called non discrimination package or else be put out of business. This became a 20% millstone around their necks, and when they had to figure out how to budgit a product line they had to take this into matter. OHSA probably added another 10% (it was needed). But the non domestic auto companys (you know who) didn't ever abide by the coerced rules forced on them (yes I know they've been sued a few times). Now you add into the equation that roughly 40% of the workforce dosn't produce a single part. Plus the big three have as much as 10 levels of management (some with nobody working for them). It takes a lot of skilled people to keep the place running. But of course you could cut them out and use factory service people at $120 an hour (on the low end). Downtime is the real killer in these plants, and often is in the half million dollars an hour area. That's why you keep the service folks in house (they've tried it the otherway more than once) as 12 hours downtime will pay a lot of wages.

gary

[11bee]

So, I don't know. Unions can really hurt a company by making it non-competitive due to labor costs, especially in an internationally competitive arena where there is not a level playing field. Just look at the 80's American auto industry. Money that went into salaries and benefits for UAW workers resulted in lower vehicle quality as management was forced to use cheaper materials and construction techniques. They managed to fight back somewhat in the 90's when the economy was good. But still, with American cars, we are still living with some of the "cost cutting/quality marginalizing" methods adopted by American companies during those years as the methods have become institutionalized. Even today, generally speaking, IMO, GM or Ford still does not put out a vehicle of the same level of quality as even Hyundai, who entered the domestic market in 1986,, much less Honda or Toyota.

Just to focus on the US auto comment, both sides have some culpability but IMO, the main difference between US and offshore manufactures back in the 80's was that the US product sucked because management opted to focus on profit margin, at the expense of both quality and R&D. Toyota and Honda took a much longer view. If your only goal is to make your upcoming quarterly numbers and meet projections, you are not going to be in business for very long. However that was pretty much the mindset of your average MBA back in those days. Salaries and bennies for hourly workers had very little to do with the state of affairs.

Unfortunately, despite making some impressive strides, US autos still remain in the "suck" category, the only difference is that they are not nearly as bad as the clunkers rolling off American production lines back in the 80's.

[vvac201]

Pointless Post!!!!!! :monkeydance:

[vvac201]

lol, looks like the i b t l gets changed to Pointless Post!!!

[Horrido]

[mlicari]

Mike

[The_Animal]

"Sno-Balls!? I HATE SNO-BALLS!" ;)

I need to buy a twinkie tomorrow to have one last taste to remember Hostess by... because I never have been too crazy about the taste of Little Debbie products.

Thanks for clarifying "products"

[Leon]

Epic reply! Thanks for this.

So glad I caught this!!

Who would have thought that the decisive battle that settles Management Vs Union would be settled on the internet once and for all and on ARC to boot!!

So glad we finally put this issue to rest after this internet battle royale!

Caption: White House refreshes minute by minute to see decisive ARC General Discussion Battle on Unions/Twinkie thread.

Lotta tension, I don't think anyone is getting to bed before 4AM

[ross blackford]

It's a great shame to see a long running company with a large product line go down the gurgler. It seems from what's been said that decreasing market share (perhaps) and corporate greed are mostly responsible for this. I can't for the life of me see how management can justify these huge increases in salaries and benefits when the company's share price is heading south real quickly. It seems to me that once some people get into management they forget that they have responsibilities to all shareholders and employees, not just themselves. As a company's profits increase so then all who work or invest in the process, shareholders, management and hourly rate workers should also share in the fortunes of the company. It's also a director's responsibility to ensure that the company does its best to improve its lot in the market place. Unfortunately in these days of corporate raiding the upper echelons seem to have forgotten their responsibilities, if they ever had any clue what those responsibilities were in the first place. It does truly seem that management regards people as just another cost and the easiest cost to cut quickly.

There's a certain well known airline here in Oz that has just cut about 600 engineers (aircraft trades people) from its workforce at 2 sites. The CEO however earlier this year voted himself a pay rise in the millions and benefits rise of millions more, when the company is going backwards at this point in time. He's also trying to screw workers salaries down. This is surely pure arrogance on his part. Previous CEOs wouldn't have had the guts to do this sort of thing because they were concerned about their good name. This bloke doesn't care about his good? name, which isn't anymore if it ever really was, and that's obvious.

Unions also can come in for their fair share of criticism in some fights. I'm a member of a certain union here that has been put into administration with a Federal Court Judge presiding. The former president of the union is now facing about 80 charges including graft, corruption, theft and fraud amongst a whole raft of others. Until about a fortnight ago he was facing about 52 charges then the NSW Police added another 28 to the list. Some of his other top executives are also facing criminal charges. Some years ago the union got us a 2.5% pay increase. It came at much greater cost to us, scaling back our benefits by much more than 2.5% to pay for it. They then congratulated themselves on the fine work they'd done with pay increases for themselves. Yeah, right. The rank and file got no say in that one, but they're supposed to represent us and they take our fortnightly union dues out of our pay but what do we get for it. Frankly I can't see any benefit at the moment. Hopefully early next month that will change. We have union elections early next month and already my mail box is getting loaded with electioneering paperwork and how to vote cards and has been for about the last 6 weeks.

It is indeed a sorry world when this sort of thing is allowed to continue. I'm glad the feds are involved with the Twinkies parent company now. The above union I mentioned is under investigation by the NSW Police, the Victorian Police and the Australian Federal Police. Only when ordinary people start to speak out against this sort of thing will there be action against it. As the old saying goes, "Evil can only survive when good men do nothing."

Regards,

Ross.

[TaiidanTomcat]

"Evil can only survive when good men do nothing."

Evil being you know, Hitler, or Stalin, mass murderers or Serial killers... also Managers. ;)

[TaiidanTomcat]

Blue Meth Donuts!

[zerosystem]

which is going to be worth more in the new year...black market hostess products or the us dollar?

[ChesshireCat]

Just to focus on the US auto comment, both sides have some culpability but IMO, the main difference between US and offshore manufactures back in the 80's was that the US product sucked because management opted to focus on profit margin, at the expense of both quality and R&D. Toyota and Honda took a much longer view. If your only goal is to make your upcoming quarterly numbers and meet projections, you are not going to be in business for very long. However that was pretty much the mindset of your average MBA back in those days. Salaries and bennies for hourly workers had very little to do with the state of affairs.

Unfortunately, despite making some impressive strides, US autos still remain in the "suck" category, the only difference is that they are not nearly as bad as the clunkers rolling off American production lines back in the 80's.

actually a pretty good post sir, but allow me to add to it.

The Japanese heavy manufacturing concern was completely revamped after WWII, and the guy that did it was Edwards Demmings. He's treated like a God over there, and we ignored him. I was priviledged to be allowed to attend one of his seminars many years ago, and the guy literally opened up a new world for me. Yet his concepts and ideas were always there, but largely ignored. I still remember well him say that production quantity is a road to ruin, and that production quality will build a road to your front door (not the exact words). He said that each and every individual person needed to create his own company inside the corporation with certain goals to create quality and efficiency. I went back to my own little world and started all over again. Boss asked me what I was upto? I sat him down and told him what I had learned and what direction I was headed in. No longer was the phrase "this is good enough" going to work for me. He asked me who all went to the week long class that I took and I told him I saw folks from the aircraft world, deisel engine world, and auto world right along with maybe three other machine builders from other companys. This class opened doors for me that I would have never been allowed to enter.

Basicly Mr. Demmings said that if you made 1000 cars a day, but 100 of them need some rework (90% minor) you had a problem. He said it was far better to make 600 cars a day that were perfect than to push a massive amount out that wasn't. Overtime you will correct the issues while increasing the volume of production. While this is happening the consumer will beat a path to your door. Guess who did that? Demmings also pointed out a major fault in U.S. industry that came about from the way we did things in WWII. We geared up for large short term profits, while the Japanese geared up for smaller long term profits. In the end the latter will always come out on top. Now in today's world things are doing a massive turn around, and the Japanese corporations are gearing up at larger profit margins on a short term basis (yes they are doing the quality thing to a certain extent). Now the Japanese auto companys yearly lead the world in call backs followed closely by the European companys. The U.S. companys (actually divisions) that adopted the Demmings idea did very well, and most of the others didn't. I could probably name twenty-five companys that are gone that didn't. I watched one company reduce their warranty costs to the point that they had to reduce the product cost almost 10% to stay competetive! Interestingly that particular corporation still made good profits during the downturn in the U.S. economy, and that company follows the Demmings plan right down to the letter (actually took it a couple steps further). I also learned that the amount of money you paid a worker a year, month, week, or an hour has very little todo with the equation. It's what he did in 8 hours of work. This ended up being a bombshell on the engineering groups, and a lot of engineers are unemployed over this right now. Another serious killer for heavy manufacturing that is constantly being fought over is the concept of supervision. Demmings said you can't become a qualified supervisor unless you are capable of doing every job you supervise well. That killed the college kids, and that's where 75% of the resistence is towards this is to this very day.

Most of the very successful corporations will not hire a kid right out of college unless it's in a meaningless position. Our educational system is a complete joke these days. Kids can't even count change! Let alone work a trig problem. But of course there are exceptions to this, and those people seriously climb the ladder. A sheepskin from about six or eight universities will open the doors anywhere, and the rest are looked at with contempt. You got a degree from Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, Perdue (most of the time), Stanford, Rose Hulman, Sloan in Chicago, and a couple others, and you'll probably be hired. The rest just move on and go back to school. Now we have a generation that are professional students rather than getting their hands dirty. I retired awhile back, and the place I worked for has called me several times to ask me to come back as a supervisor with some serious wages. Asked them why? And they simply say there's nobody in the work force fior hire these days. Yet they are everywhere, or are they really? That political science degree might get you a position at Burger King. In NYC a person on welfare earns about $3K less than a starting high school math teacher! And dosn't have to put up with the B.S.

gary

[DutyCat]

I

I've been inside most all the bigger automotive plants at one time or another, and your post is far from correct. The most productive production worker on this planet is a UAW worker in a car plant. This isn't my view, but from folks a lot smarter than I am. Here's one of my favorite examples: In 1980 a guy cutting gears ran two Barber Coleman hobs that cut five gears at a time in 180 seconds. He also ran two Fellows gear shapers that cut a very large gear in about 40 minutes. He deburred all these gears and cleaned them after shaving the smaller gears. Guy stayed very busy, and even ran the machines thru his lunch period and brakes at about $8 an hour. Now that same guy runs a gear cell with five G&L hobs, one CNC lathe, and two deburr machines (other guy hand deburred each gear). He now cuts 3 gears (similar to the others) on each machine every 50 seconds. The working tolarence is about half of what it used to be. People that build gear cutting machines are often stunned at the quality and production rates (I was). Figuring the new guy's wages at $24 an hour you would find out that the company now has less than 1/5th the labor cost in the finished product. Fox news won't tell you that part! By the way there are cells like this all over the place.

Here's another example: We all know what an automatic transmission looks like. Lets take the main case (the outside housing that we see when we build a model car or truck). In the 1970's they cut them on very large transfer machines that often had eight to ten men working on them and maintaining them at about $6 an hour. Spit a housing out every three minutes; even though you actually need about 1/3rd of what it could produce. So you only ran it two shifts a day and pulled maintance on it on the third. Now they cut a similar case in a machining cell (called an FMS sytem). The machine centers are fed with robotic cars and cut a case every twenty minutes or so. There is one person loading and unloading the robotic cars and one person running all the machinery. Plus another person rebuilding all the spent tooling. The machines are programed to run at 100%, and it takes an act of congress to run one of them at 90%. The window of tolarence is less than half of what it used to be. The production folks never dreamed up this concept, but a process engineer did. They just run it. You now have more money in the transmission case than before, but better quality. These machines have to be rebuilt about every four years, and will go thru eight spindle rebuilds in that span. The production guy didn't buy the equipment; he just runs it.

The average non domestic automobile made in this country has about 12% labor cost in it (some are more and others are less). The average UAW car or truck is well under 10% and in a few cases less than 7%. In the late 1970's the White House forced the big three corporations in to a so called non discrimination package or else be put out of business. This became a 20% millstone around their necks, and when they had to figure out how to budgit a product line they had to take this into matter. OHSA probably added another 10% (it was needed). But the non domestic auto companys (you know who) didn't ever abide by the coerced rules forced on them (yes I know they've been sued a few times). Now you add into the equation that roughly 40% of the workforce dosn't produce a single part. Plus the big three have as much as 10 levels of management (some with nobody working for them). It takes a lot of skilled people to keep the place running. But of course you could cut them out and use factory service people at $120 an hour (on the low end). Downtime is the real killer in these plants, and often is in the half million dollars an hour area. That's why you keep the service folks in house (they've tried it the otherway more than once) as 12 hours downtime will pay a lot of wages.

gary

That is awesome. Thanks for your informed input. I tried to be balanced in my post, as I realize there is usually more than one side to any controversial issue. The perception of most Americans is that domestic quality has suffered as a result of union driven high wages (back in the day, $24 an hour for a person to put a lug nut on a wheel is an example I have heard), combined with management/shareholder short term profiteering. Materials and craftsmanship suffer as a result. As you have pointed out, the reality might be somewhat different.

Just to focus on the US auto comment, both sides have some culpability but IMO, the main difference between US and offshore manufactures back in the 80's was that the US product sucked because management opted to focus on profit margin, at the expense of both quality and R&D. Toyota and Honda took a much longer view. If your only goal is to make your upcoming quarterly numbers and meet projections, you are not going to be in business for very long. However that was pretty much the mindset of your average MBA back in those days. Salaries and bennies for hourly workers had very little to do with the state of affairs.

Unfortunately, despite making some impressive strides, US autos still remain in the "suck" category, the only difference is that they are not nearly as bad as the clunkers rolling off American production lines back in the 80's.

Suck is a strong word.

I think you can pretty much buy any car these days and if you take care of it, it will last you. I have a Chevy Colorado in the garage. Ir is a 2007. I have had it five years. It looks practically brand new. I have 70,000 miles on it.

However, domestic companies can make major compromises in order to pad the bottom line. Let's look at my truck. Despite the fact that it is a high end, leather trimmed model, I can tell there are cost cutting concessions made all over this vehicle. Lets compare it to its main competition. the Nissan Frontier, which is the preferred ride of my buddy.

1. Quality and sturdiness of interior plastics are substandard compared to my buddy's Frontier.

2. He has a 4.0 V-6 with a 6 speed transmission. I have a hacked off Trailblazer I-6 engine which they made into a 3.7 I-5, combined with an old technology classic GM 4-speed from the age of the dinosaurs. The engine started out as a 3.5. Chevy had problems with valve springs breaking from 2004-2006, after which they punched it out to 3.7, gave it stronger valve springs, and 20 more HP. On the plus side, the transmission is considered bulletproof, when of the best ever produced. Still, an inferior drive train overall.

3. Nissan had a factory sprayed in bed liner. My chevy had a traditional, painted bed. I had to spend $500 to get a sprayed in aftermarket Linex liner.

4. Nissan has anti chip undercoating and first 4 inches or so of the lower body side panels coated as well, under the paint finish. Good. Chevy has nothing, NADA. On top of that, the owner's manual tells you the reason is that it is not needed.

5. Chevy owner's manual also says certain underbody, non-finish parts may rust. Considered normal and don't worry about it. Sure enough, shortly after I take delivery, I look underneath. Yep, rust in between the leaf spring. Oh, wait, there is a sticker there, its says....."Made in Mexico."

6. High end Colorado is overpriced compared to the Frontier. And quite simply, GM doesn't want to sell the trimmed up version of this truck to you unless you are willing to pay dearly for it. What they really want to do is sell you a Silverado. Theprofit margin is much greater. The lid is kept on Colorado capabilty and thus sales, to pump up the Silverado. This is also likely why GM put the I-5, 4 speed in it.

After all that bashing, the positive is that the truck looks like a Chevy...meaning good. Interior layout is traditional American truck, not cluttered up like a spaceship, also good. I wanted a traditional American truck. I am happy with my Colorado overall, but it could have been so much more.

My point overall is this is the type of management thinking we get with American auto companies.

[f4u4 nut]

"Next, we'll be trading a box of Twinkies for Plastic model kits!"

[ChesshireCat]

That is awesome. Thanks for your informed input. I tried to be balanced in my post, as I realize there is usually more than one side to any controversial issue. The perception of most Americans is that domestic quality has suffered as a result of union driven high wages (back in the day, $24 an hour for a person to put a lug nut on a wheel is an example I have heard), combined with management/shareholder short term profiteering. Materials and craftsmanship suffer as a result. As you have pointed out, the reality might be somewhat different.

Suck is a strong word.

I think you can pretty much buy any car these days and if you take care of it, it will last you. I have a Chevy Colorado in the garage. Ir is a 2007. I have had it five years. It looks practically brand new. I have 70,000 miles on it.

However, domestic companies can make major compromises in order to pad the bottom line. Let's look at my truck. Despite the fact that it is a high end, leather trimmed model, I can tell there are cost cutting concessions made all over this vehicle. Lets compare it to its main competition. the Nissan Frontier, which is the preferred ride of my buddy.

1. Quality and sturdiness of interior plastics are substandard compared to my buddy's Frontier.

2. He has a 4.0 V-6 with a 6 speed transmission. I have a hacked off Trailblazer I-6 engine which they made into a 3.7 I-5, combined with an old technology classic GM 4-speed from the age of the dinosaurs. The engine started out as a 3.5. Chevy had problems with valve springs breaking from 2004-2006, after which they punched it out to 3.7, gave it stronger valve springs, and 20 more HP. On the plus side, the transmission is considered bulletproof, when of the best ever produced. Still, an inferior drive train overall.

3. Nissan had a factory sprayed in bed liner. My chevy had a traditional, painted bed. I had to spend $500 to get a sprayed in aftermarket Linex liner.

4. Nissan has anti chip undercoating and first 4 inches or so of the lower body side panels coated as well, under the paint finish. Good. Chevy has nothing, NADA. On top of that, the owner's manual tells you the reason is that it is not needed.

5. Chevy owner's manual also says certain underbody, non-finish parts may rust. Considered normal and don't worry about it. Sure enough, shortly after I take delivery, I look underneath. Yep, rust in between the leaf spring. Oh, wait, there is a sticker there, its says....."Made in Mexico."

6. High end Colorado is overpriced compared to the Frontier. And quite simply, GM doesn't want to sell the trimmed up version of this truck to you unless you are willing to pay dearly for it. What they really want to do is sell you a Silverado. Theprofit margin is much greater. The lid is kept on Colorado capabilty and thus sales, to pump up the Silverado. This is also likely why GM put the I-5, 4 speed in it.

After all that bashing, the positive is that the truck looks like a Chevy...meaning good. Interior layout is traditional American truck, not cluttered up like a spaceship, also good. I wanted a traditional American truck. I am happy with my Colorado overall, but it could have been so much more.

My point overall is this is the type of management thinking we get with American auto companies.

most people fail to realize that the guy hanging a bumper does what he's told to do, and a process engineer sets up the assembly line. The valve spring issue was something kinda odd as I personally know how they develop their product lines. On the opposite side of the street, I dropped by a friends place who is a very good deisel mechanic as well as a tool maker. Out front was a Dodge one ton pickup truck that was a matte grey blue color. Needed to be rubbed out really bad. It was there to change the clutch, and give it a tune up. He asked me to guess the milage on the truck. I said 150K miles, and he laughed at me! It had 756K miles on it, and was in for it's third clutch. It was owned by a large animal vet, and had been all over this country pulling a large trailer. Did she get her money out of the truck? You bet she did! Marc said it was probably good for another 250K miles before a major engine teardown

gary

[ross blackford]

I've often said that companies that go for long term slow profit growth produce better products overall than those that go for broke now, and probably end up there tomorrow. Mostly cars built before WW2 were made to last. I have just bought a 1939 Pontiac Silver Arrow Coupe (Holden body, so different from a '39 American Ponty Coupe). There's no rust in the body and only very slight surface rust on the chassis. It has always been garaged and spent the first 50 years of its life owned by spinster sisters in Brisbane close to the coast. It was then sold to a businessman/collector who stored it out in western Queensland for 20 years then it spent a couple of years in Townsville on the tropical north Queensland coast and now it's in Newcastle also on the coast. It's as solid as the Rock of Gibraltor and in good condition for a car its age. They certainly don't make 'em like they used to.

GM-H's then General Manager Laurence Hartnett was a visionary leader and one of Australia's 3 main WW2 industrial leaders. It's interesting that he and the other 2 industrial leaders, Lawrence Wackett, GM of Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and Essington Lewis, GM of BHP were also good friends who in the early 30's saw what was happening in Europe and the Far East and and realized that this could well affect Australia in a few years time. They decided to do something about it then and there. Lewis ended up in charge of all wartime production and also set Australia up for the post war period. Were these men corporate raiders? Hardly. They were men of propriety who cared about the future of their companies and the country, their good names and about the people who worked for them.

There's a story I heard years ago about Lewis when he was visiting the BHP Newcastle steelworks in the mid 30s. He was watching a man doing a job which required heavy industrial gloves. The man's gloves were hanging from his belt. Lewis walked up and stood just out of the man's peripheral vision. Eventually the worker turned to look at something else and saw Lewis standing there. Lewis then approached him and asked why his gloves weren't on this hands. The man replied he'd forgotten about them (fair enough, we all do that from time to time). Lewis quietly reminded him that's what the company provided him with gloves for and he didn't want to see him not using them again. He then told the man he would be visiting the medical centre next and didn't want to see him brought in in the works ambulance with his hands cut to shreds. There was no sacking, (which legally there could have been) no ranting or raving, no black marks on the man's personal file, just a quiet humble word or two of reminder was enough. Maybe we should get back to those older ideas of propriety and responsibility. Here Lewis was taking reponsibitly for someone else's small mistake, which could have had tragic results if it had gone horribly wrong and resulted in a lost time injury. Maybe then our companies would be more profitable over the longer run and the total profit be increased and shareholders, managers and workers could share in the better fortunes of the company.

Regards,

Ross.

Edited for typo.

Edited November 18, 2012 by ross blackford

[TaiidanTomcat]

"Next, we'll be trading a box of Twinkies for Plastic model kits!"

At least with the twinkies it won't still be in the box a year later LOL

[ChesshireCat]

At least with the twinkies it won't still be in the box a year later LOL

Hasegawa will give you all a 1/24th scale plastic get in January

gary