Tapsearch Com EditorFree trade halts production
March 22nd 2011 19:16
Ray Tapajna Chronicles Free trade fails us - and Squid.me/9
Earth quake in Japan closes factories in the USA.
Another auto factory in the USA has stopped production. General Motors in Buffalo, N.Y., engine plant is laying off workers. It is another sign that Japan's disaster is affecting automakers around the globe.
General Motors has so far suspended production in Colorado, New York and Louisana. GM does not know when they will resume production at these plants.
Japanes factories are unlikely to return to full production for months.
I worked in a factory as a set up man for three assembly lines many years ago. When orders slowed down for oil burning furnaces, workers were taken off the assembly line and sent to various departments that manufacturered the parts onsite. The company did this so they would not have to lay off their workers. In those days, all workers were considered to be valuable assets and this added up to the parts also becoming valuable assets. The parts also grew in value since our economy as a whole was growing in value. And the parts were in inventory on a perpetual basis. No one had to pay for a rush air shipment from some far away place in an emergency.
Later in my life, I was a trouble shooter supplier for major corporations including an industrial micro computer manufacturer. They were caught off guard when components like power supplies were no longer manufactured in the U.S.A. They pressure me into supplying them with a power supply made in Japan. However, in the U.S.A., we still had manufacturers field testing components for up to six months before they approved the part for the regular production cycle. Prior to this, the manufacturer would put the item from the field test through a destruction test to find out how the product endured. I tried to tell them, the field testing was no longer applicable since , Japanese producers would change the inner workings of components without telling anyone or even putting a revision code on the product. After six months, many components were altered many times. The part was no longer the same thing.
Neither was the industrial micro computer manufacturer. They too lost to free trade and no longer in business.
The current situation also reminded me about the State of Indiana paying millions of dollars to Honda to built a new assembly plant in their state. They ultimately hired 5,000 workers at a much lesser pay scale and less benefits than U.S. autoworkers made in the past. In the late 1980s, more than 400,000 auto workers lost their jobs due to the foreign competition.
While the State of Indiana was paying Honda, millions of dollars to build their plant, about 20,000 auto parts workers in the same state lost their jobs. As noted above even American brands like General Motors now depend on foreign parts to keep their factory production going.
Free trade as brought its own economic storm with millions of middle class production workers in the U.S. losing their jobs. I think back to my old employer who switch the workers from the assembly line to making the parts and wonder what could have been if the value of workers and labor was not degraded to the extent it has not only in the U.S.A. but across the global.
Who said we had to compete like this with one another for the same job in a global economic arena. Today workers are commoditized, Free trade is based on moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor. It even pays for the heavy overhead costs of long haul ocean, air, truck and rail shipping. Only a few so far, have studied the cost of long haul shipping to the environment and the protective packaging required in the process. It is obvious our government, who keeps talking about the new green economy coming, ignores this part of the equation. Reportedly, even parts are sent back and forth in a finishing process many times.
Earth quake in Japan closes factories in the USA.
Another auto factory in the USA has stopped production. General Motors in Buffalo, N.Y., engine plant is laying off workers. It is another sign that Japan's disaster is affecting automakers around the globe.
General Motors has so far suspended production in Colorado, New York and Louisana. GM does not know when they will resume production at these plants.
Japanes factories are unlikely to return to full production for months.
I worked in a factory as a set up man for three assembly lines many years ago. When orders slowed down for oil burning furnaces, workers were taken off the assembly line and sent to various departments that manufacturered the parts onsite. The company did this so they would not have to lay off their workers. In those days, all workers were considered to be valuable assets and this added up to the parts also becoming valuable assets. The parts also grew in value since our economy as a whole was growing in value. And the parts were in inventory on a perpetual basis. No one had to pay for a rush air shipment from some far away place in an emergency.
Later in my life, I was a trouble shooter supplier for major corporations including an industrial micro computer manufacturer. They were caught off guard when components like power supplies were no longer manufactured in the U.S.A. They pressure me into supplying them with a power supply made in Japan. However, in the U.S.A., we still had manufacturers field testing components for up to six months before they approved the part for the regular production cycle. Prior to this, the manufacturer would put the item from the field test through a destruction test to find out how the product endured. I tried to tell them, the field testing was no longer applicable since , Japanese producers would change the inner workings of components without telling anyone or even putting a revision code on the product. After six months, many components were altered many times. The part was no longer the same thing.
Neither was the industrial micro computer manufacturer. They too lost to free trade and no longer in business.
The current situation also reminded me about the State of Indiana paying millions of dollars to Honda to built a new assembly plant in their state. They ultimately hired 5,000 workers at a much lesser pay scale and less benefits than U.S. autoworkers made in the past. In the late 1980s, more than 400,000 auto workers lost their jobs due to the foreign competition.
While the State of Indiana was paying Honda, millions of dollars to build their plant, about 20,000 auto parts workers in the same state lost their jobs. As noted above even American brands like General Motors now depend on foreign parts to keep their factory production going.
Free trade as brought its own economic storm with millions of middle class production workers in the U.S. losing their jobs. I think back to my old employer who switch the workers from the assembly line to making the parts and wonder what could have been if the value of workers and labor was not degraded to the extent it has not only in the U.S.A. but across the global.
Who said we had to compete like this with one another for the same job in a global economic arena. Today workers are commoditized, Free trade is based on moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor. It even pays for the heavy overhead costs of long haul ocean, air, truck and rail shipping. Only a few so far, have studied the cost of long haul shipping to the environment and the protective packaging required in the process. It is obvious our government, who keeps talking about the new green economy coming, ignores this part of the equation. Reportedly, even parts are sent back and forth in a finishing process many times.
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