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U.S. tire maker doesn't want French factory

Gambles

Gambles

Well-known Member
I guess Titan makes tractor tires....

(Reuters) - The CEO of a U.S. tire maker has delivered a crushing summary of how some outsiders view France"s work ethic in a letter saying he would have to be stupid to take over a factory whose staff only put in three hours work a day.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-france-workers-idUSBRE91J0OF20130220
 
you can't fire them either and if you close the plant you still have to pay them for life (or until retirment???).
 
Good for him! Unfortunately, if the unions in this country had their way, things would be the same as the Frenchies - they're headed that way now.
 
I can tell you Michelin as a French company isn't the same, their employees work very hard at the local plants, non unionized too.
 
What I get out of the article, is that the CEO doesn't want to pay any kind of meaningful wage. French union b/s not withstanding. He brags about going to China or India, there he can have his tires made while paying practically SLAVE WAGES. Don't look for him to expand any operations in THIS country either. He is a PERFECT example of why we are where we are.
Jack
 
(quoted from post at 10:21:57 02/20/13) What I get out of the article, is that the CEO doesn't want to pay any kind of meaningful wage. French union b/s not withstanding. He brags about going to China or India, there he can have his tires made while paying practically SLAVE WAGES. Don't look for him to expand any operations in THIS country either. He is a PERFECT example of why we are where we are.
Jack
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Jack:

A CEO has to balance many things. Like price on produced goods. If labor cost make the finished product too expensive then the company can't sell those items and it goes broke. It has to be able to compete in the market place. As long as the buying public buys by price point they have to cut cost to stay in business. A lot of times that means outsourcing labor. Are you willing to pay a couple hundred more for a set of four car tires or that much extra per tire for you tractor? I buy my tires from a local place. Surprisingly their prices are competitive with the box stores plus it helps keep the place in business. I try to buy only US branded tires. Most people I know try buying the cheapest tire they can.

Rick
 
Of course, it's easy to see the reasons why a company would go with foreign labor. Cheap labor, weak to non-existant labor and environmental laws. That doesn't make it right though. We, the U.S. used to make EVERYTHING, and thing were NOT expensive. But the U.S was sold out years ago in the pursuit of this GlobalEconomy. It has been really great for global companies, worked out good for us,(For a while) with cheaper goods. But look where we are now. Manufacturing jobs are going, going, and soon to be totally GONE. And they ain't NEVER coming back. Maybe in 50yrs, when we're a third rate country, those jobs will come back.
Jack
 
Jack actually if you go back and look we have been outsourcing for over 100 years.

Also if you look federal minimum wage, EPA and OSHA have done more to drive jobs off shore more than anything. Couple that with the buyers desire for cheap goods and you see where we are at today. Funny but if you start looking things up you will find that the US still produces many items. Much more than you would think after reading the news.

As far a doing anything that helps France, well lets not go there. I don't want to be the reason this gets poofed.

Rick
 
I wouldn't be too sure about that! In 2011 Goodyear sold their local factory that makes steel cord for tires to a Korean company. In late 2012 they closed the plant, laid off 300 workers, many of them union, and nothing was said about them getting paid indefinitely.
 
I am not argueing with you. OSHA, EPA, Throw in NAFTA and CAFTA and the other sellout treatys. I'm in FULL agreement with you. And the way things are going, it's only going to get worse. Yeah, sure the U.S produces a lot of things. But it is a sad joke when compaired to just 50yrs ago.
Jack
 
There arew 14 faciltlies only Tuscaloosa, AL. Opelika, Al. and Woodburn, In. are unionized 11 are not most in South Carolina. There is a union label on the ones made in the three organized factories.
 
Jack the point I was trying to make is the the government and the buying public has done more to outsource jobs than any company. I have trouble blaming a CEO for outsourcing when they are hired to keep a company operating at a profit.

Think about it. We didn't have a problem with China until a politician gave them most favored nation trade status. OSHA and EPA have also driven many jobs off shore. And this gotta have everything and have it right now attitude from the general public are all to blame. Want to fix the problem? Start with getting people to support US based businesses that actually make something here. Then take a common sense approach to the environment and safety. Then you can start looking at out politicians. Stop voting with our wallets and start voting with our heads. Stop voting for a party and vote for the best person (kinda sad when you base your vote on who is the least likely to mess things up even more). Start holding our politicians accountable!

Rick
 
Again, I'm not arguing with you. I see your point. The CEO, and others like him, are just taking advantage of what the governments have created for them. And that would be the access to the third world labor markets. EPA and OSHA overregulation have just helped make the choices even easier for them. Don't even get me started on the giving the chinese carteblanc to the world markets either.
I'll tell you something I don't agree with you on, and that's voting our way out of this mess. The damage is done.
Jack
 
That CEO has been active on some of these forums in the past, just a good old farm fella basically.

Paul
 
The Michelin truck tire plants here in NS are non union. They're also some of the best paying jobs around....

Rod
 
It's funny how Michelin is burying Titan in the marketplace with tires that cost half as much again.... Likewise with Firestone.

I just can't wait until people start crying about how poor Titan's tires are after they shift production to China....

Rod
 
(quoted from post at 16:05:09 02/20/13) It's funny how Michelin is burying Titan in the marketplace with tires that cost half as much again.... Likewise with Firestone.

I just can't wait until people start crying about how poor Titan's tires are after they shift production to China....

Rod
Click to expand...

Rod, you could be right on that point.

Rick
 
When Titan [farm tire plant] went on strike in the 80's, the union came down and picketed our little farm tire store. They did not realize the restrurant across the street is the one that 99% of the farmers, that have to eat in town, eat their dinner. We sold more semi loads of Firestone farm tires that year than ever before and our Firestone rear tire sales continued to grow every year after that. I never did get to thank the titan workers for that. Our American farmers are more than willing to pay for a quality product. Every time the unions go on strike the farmers cost goes up. They look at that and see a lot of guys making big bucks and getting their health insurance provided for them at no charge, it really causes them to look take a hard look at the product, especially back then when they were operation on a shoe string.
 
BFG owns Firestone, not Michelin.

Side note, the boss was looking for 18.4-42 tires, he got Michelins for nearly the same price as he could the "cheap" tires.
 
Morry Taylor who owns Titan tire bought the Armstrong tire plant in des Moines ia. That's where the tractor tires are made. I've been a UAW member most of my life,welded for 33 years at John Deere des Moines works. 90 percent of the people that don't like unions have never belonged to one and don't know the first thing about them. No it's not true if you close a plant you have to pay the employes for the rest of their life. It's true you don't need unions in small mom and pop company's,but a big company would eat you alive without them. Just stateing the facts!
 
I think the comments aobut paying former employees for the rest of their lives is directed more at labour laws in France than union, though it may be a bit of both.
 
Titian Wheel in Quincy, formally owned by Firestone, not only is not Union, but the employees have voted them down so many time they gave up. If you do not want to hear what Morry Taylor says, do not ask him. If you do any checking on the business regulations in France you can see why even a poor business man would run from France.
 
So will production of those tires be moved to China, India, or an African country? Labor prices have risen enough in China and India that Africa now has the lowest labor costs.
 
(quoted from post at 12:27:01 02/20/13) Again, I'm not arguing with you. I see your point. The CEO, and others like him, are just taking advantage of what the governments have created for them. And that would be the access to the third world labor markets. EPA and OSHA overregulation have just helped make the choices even easier for them. Don't even get me started on the giving the chinese carteblanc to the world markets either.
I'll tell you something I don't agree with you on, and that's voting our way out of this mess. The damage is done.
Jack
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Jack, the CEO, and thousands others like him, are responding to what gov't did, not taking advantage of something gov't created. If you are the CEO of a co and your profit in the the US is, say, 5%, because of high wages, health care, regulations, laws, etc. and the stockholders are screaming because they used to make 8% and you can go to Blghytostan and make a profit of 12-15%......what's the smart move? Companies are not in business for any reason other than making a profit. No one has in private enterprise has ever gone into business to operate at a loss. Only gov't can do that by taxing it's citizens and even then it's a net loss.

I don;t like companies moving over seas or even out of state, but it's simple economics.
 
(quoted from post at 18:48:19 02/20/13) Morry Taylor who owns Titan tire bought the Armstrong tire plant in des Moines ia. That's where the tractor tires are made. I've been a UAW member most of my life,welded for 33 years at John Deere des Moines works. 90 percent of the people that don't like unions have never belonged to one and don't know the first thing about them. No it's not true if you close a plant you have to pay the employes for the rest of their life. It's true you don't need unions in small mom and pop company's,but a big company would eat you alive without them. Just stateing the facts!
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I was forced to belong to a union to work where I did. They took us from being a more or less appreciated group to being considered no more than leeches on society. Unions have their place, but when the union ends up biting the hand that feeds us it never ends well.
 
Ever hear of the Breton woods agreement? THAT was at the time the G-5. They got together at Breton woods in the early 70s, and more or less reconfigured the global economy. In the process WE, the UnitedStates, got the crappy end of the deal. We got sold out. They, the G-5 CREATED the new world economy.
Of course the companies are going to take adavantage of the cheap wages and lower costs. What have I been saying? I TOTALLY get that. What the governments did or created, what difference does it make? What are we going to do now, play word games? EPA, OSHA, and a whole host of other beurocratic garbage was CREATED by the government. And those CREATIONS play a big part in the exoduce of U.S. manufacturing and the jobs it created.
Jack
 
My own belief is that the environmental type regulations and so on play a much bigger role in the exodus of manufacturing here than wages do. When you add up transportation costs to haul the raw material over there, higher electrical costs to do anything with it there... poor transportation infrastructure in comparison to ours... then the cost to haul the goods back not to mention the replacement costs of poor or defective gooods... it's really NOT that cheap. The only thing pushing it in their favor is that there's basically no environmental controls, no labor laws and no safety laws. That's why it's attractive to be there...

Rod
 
I said basically the same thing in another post here. Imagine the transportation costs from China. But factor in slave wages, no environmental, labor and saftey laws, and you have those global companies making some money. I also said, maybe in 50yrs after we turn into a third world hole, maybe the manufacturing and jobs will come back.
 

Jack, I'm just not following you. This is what you opened with- "What I get out of the article, is that the CEO doesn't want to pay any kind of meaningful wage. French union b/s not withstanding. He brags about going to China or India, there he can have his tires made while paying practically SLAVE WAGES. Don't look for him to expand any operations in THIS country either. He is a PERFECT example of why we are where we are.
Jack"

Now you're clear over into G5 conspiracies and gov't conspiracies. I must have missed the bus someplace in there.
 
One never knows how long that will take or in what form... Mabey the chinese will get tired of being slaves and rise up against their masters. Mabey our population will finally realize that with no manufacturing there are no jobs here and start demanding locally made products again.... or mabey a series of events will devolve into another world war, not unlike the causation of the last world war.
You ought to remember that Bretton Woods was about finding a more equitable financial situation going forward from the last great war based on the notion that it was financial hardship that was largely the cause of said war. Nazism would not have taken hold in the way it did if everything else had be right at the time in Germany.

Rod
 
OK, what I find striking about the CEO's comments, is the unabashed openness about just going and setting up shop in a place like China or India. I mean, we hear our government talking about bringing jobs back. We had the CEO of G.E. on the Pres's "JobCounselPanel", to talk (Really just a big phony show) about bringing and getting americans back to work. But now, they are, the CEOs, just wide open and bragging about setting up business in, let's just say, the cheaper part of the world. THAT's what strikes me the most about the CEO's stand.
I get all the economical and business related reasons for it, I get all that. But for anybody here to seriously think that those business and jobs are going to come back, they are just whistling past the graveyard.
If you don't believe this country was sold out years ago, at "Meetings" like Breton woods, helped along with an alphabet soup of "Treatys", then I don't know what else to say. There was and is, a big push for this one world global economy. This has seriously hurt the U.S. You can't see that?
Also, trying to get my point down in a paragraph or two, is not always the easiest. It's definently not like a face to face talk. I mean, here we are, trading paragraphs back and forth over a few days. Heckova way to have a conversation, don't you think?
Jack
 
They, the Chinese people try to rise up every now and then. But it doesn't work out to well for them. Maybe they'll wear their oppressors down someday.
As far as our population goes. I think for the most part, they are more concerned about AmericanIdol, or how their local sport's team is doing, then manufacturing jobs in America.
Sure it (Breton woods), was about what you say. But the bottom line, is that it has NOT been very beneficial to the U.S. in the long term.
As far as Germany goes, after being the losers of WW1, and then having their noses rubbed in it. Yeah, it was not a good environment for mass goodwill, to say the least.
Jack
 
(quoted from post at 15:04:20 02/21/13)
Jack, I'm just not following you. This is what you opened with- "What I get out of the article, is that the CEO doesn't want to pay any kind of meaningful wage. French union b/s not withstanding. He brags about going to China or India, there he can have his tires made while paying practically SLAVE WAGES. Don't look for him to expand any operations in THIS country either. He is a PERFECT example of why we are where we are.
Jack"

Now you're clear over into G5 conspiracies and gov't conspiracies. I must have missed the bus someplace in there.
Click to expand...


Bret. What I see here is a brutally honest COE. This is maybe what we need to hear more of. Then maybe more people would get on our politicians to fix some of the problems. Just have to be smart enough to get made at them and not the CEO.

You keep going on about slave wages. If you did an across the board mandatory 4% pay raise the cost of goods on the shelf would be higher than 4%. The company that produces raw materials whould have to increase the price to cover that wage hike. Then the using company would have to raise thier rates to cover the wage, transportation and product increase. The the store has to pay yet again the above wage increase and the increased price/transportation of the product. So each time the items needed to make that product are handled the price goes up even more. So you don't get a 4% raise across the board with a 2 or 3% increase in the cost of living. You get 6-8-10% increase in the cost of living so that 4% raise just would up making the low paid worker go backwards in buying power.

Rick
 
I'll take it, that you are directing the slave wage comment to me. Where these wages are in effect(China, India and whatever other 3rd world hole they are in play), I don't think they are going to be getting any kind meaningfull raises soon that will have any kind of effect on us.
Now, you want to see a wage raise that WILL have a bad effect on us. Let the geniuses down in DC raise the minimun wage to $9-10hr. THAT will have an effect on us, and it won't be a good effect either.
 
That's why you don't do an 'across the board raise'
The focus ought to be on having a minimum that is sufficient for most to be reasonably comfortable while being employed rather than having to support them with welfare and food stamps.
It's not that everyone needs to be equal... but there's a broad inequality in society today and with that comes a lot of society's problems.

Rod
 
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