Harley Davidson is considering moving its operations in York, PA. The number of employee hours it takes to manufacture a Softail or touring bike, the models produced in York, is too high and, according to the company, the process must be restructured.
Closing the York facility is one of the options the company is currently considering in a study to be completed this year. There was no word on where the facility would be moved if it were closed. About 2,650 people are employed at two York plants
Tin Man 2 says
If the MoCo succeeds in breaking the Union they will alienate many of their customers, myself included. If the MoCo and Unions can work together Im sure some more cost savings can be wrung out of the York plants. These are trying times brought on by the corruption of the financial institutions, not the fault of the Co. or the workers.
Walt says
They make more than enough Harley components overseas already. A new and more efficient process should be developed with employees already on the job. Certainly H-D understands enough about the value and character of its brand as a century-old American manufacturer to be cautious about screwing with core American values like loyalty to employees.
mobilus says
The interesting part of this is where they would move the jobs if they shut down the York plants. GM and Ford have spent the past 10 years moving their auto manufacturing to Russia and China. GM has even managed to get the government to pay for the job and technology transfers. With the value of the U.S. dollar headed into the toilet (all those trillions put into circulation in the past year devalues the currency), Harley will earn less for every foreign bike sold. Long term, they would need to be able to charge equal numbers in a stronger currency for each bike sold overseas.
The MV Augusta purchase last year now looks reasonable. If Harley were to move the manufacturing of their Softail and FLH bikes overseas, under the umbrella of their Augusta holdings, they could charge prices (and more importantly, do the accounting) to the rest of the world in Euros, not U.S. dollars. Considering the current exchange rates, I’d rather be charging 20,000 Euro for an Ultra Classic instead of the equivalent to $20,000 U.S. Just as Harley would be looking to bring down U.S. manufacturing costs, they’re looking to exploiting currency values worldwide to increase profits. This doesn’t bode well for those working for Harley at the York plants.
pkw says
Please! Harley-Davidson is not going to move production of these bikes overseas, that is ridiculous.
Now, what I could see them doing is moving production to a greenfield site in the South, much as other companies have done. (Most new auto plants in the States are built below the Mason-Dixon line now-a-days.)
jp says
Guess that means applying for a job driving one of their trucks out of York is out of the question now…
I am a bit shaky on the mechanics of this, but can someone point out to me how relocating operations elsewhere or flat closing a facility constitutes a union break?
Jeff says
They can move the operation to a state like Louisiana where it’s a right to work state and break the union. I agree unions have their place but they are getting out of control in our country. It wouldn’t break my heart if they busted the union. They better be careful because Barack may take over and put the union in charge just like Chrysler.
Walt says
Good point, Jeff. I’d overlooked this alternative. Move Hog production to where the good ol’ boys can handle it and the union hasn’t been popular since the end of the Confederacy.
Floyd Cantrell says
Just thought you might like to read this article on the possible HD move.
http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=198428
Matt Fisher says
Combine the issues stemming from unions with the extreme taxes in the area and it’s a shock that anyone would want to do business there.
todd says
The reasoning they give is because it takes too long to assemble the bikes. How would moving the line to another state make the assembly process any shorter? Can’t they just get rid of the problem slow people and promote faster assembly workers? It seems like a much more simple route than moving the whole factory just to get rid of some of the slow workers. Maybe they need to redesign how it is assembled, use more automation, or out-source even more assemblies?
Sounds to me like they’re resorting to blaming the workers for how long it takes to build the bike instead of reviewing the process and the components. I though H-D cared more for its employees than that.
-todd
Richard Gozinya says
Maybe Harley should just dump some of those Softails from the line up, I doubt the chopper style ones are selling all that well, and they have eight different Softails as it is.
stacius says
Unions are getting out of control? Sounds like you make this statement without a CLUE as to the role unions have made in getting millions of American workers into the middle class and securing something of a future for them and their children.
We’ve just seen high-paid execs run a companies into the ground, ask for a bailout and walk away with millions of dollars, but a guy on the line asking for a fair shake is somehow a villain.
Real earning power in the US has DECLINED for the worker since the 70’s. And it ain’t all the unions fault. H-D has resisted change for decades…and overextended itself by financing its bike. Not the worker’s fault.
If this turns out to be a union-busting move, they deserve to fail.
Jim says
Its always the big bad unions, but when examined independently the problems and excess cost experienced by a manufacturer is mostly the result of poor management. The poster child of this is GM’s Fremont CA facility. It long had a reputation for high cost and poor quality, then Toyota took over the management and surprise surprise, the Corollas made there had similar numbers of defects per 100 cars as those coming from Japan. Using the same UAW workers and the same GM middle managers retrained to implement Toyota’s manufacturing processes.
HD has been riding the gravy train for a number of years and management has become fat, dumb and happy, now the good times are over and management is flailing about like a flounder on a dock blaming everyone but themselves.
Somehow Harley Davidson, a Chinese-American motorcycle company doesn’t have the same ring to it.
JSH says
In a Union show you can’t just fire the slow people. I’ve worked as a laborer represented by the Teamsters as and engineer in UAW plants. It is very difficult to fire a union employee even for cause. Even in a downturn you can’t lay off the slowest workers because layoffs are done by seniority.
I see these as a repeat of what Caterpillar did with their Peoria, IL plant. Caterpillar implemented a smoke-free workplace policy as part of their plan to help reduce healthcare costs. The UAW filed an unfair workplace practice lawsuit arguing that smoking on site was a negotiated right. Caterpillar backed down and set up designated smoking areas on-site. The UAW thought they had won until Cat announced they were closing plants in IL and moving production to a non-union plant in Texas.
Tin Man 2 says
JSH, A worker who does not work will be removed Union or not, How about the worker who has been on the job 25Yrs and cant go any faster? Should he be fired? or should the job be redesigned to be more efficent? Its easy to throw stones, Lets be real here. You go work the line for 20Yrs then let some colledge punk try to tell you to work faster, These promotions from school to supervision have done more to degrade quality then the so called engineers can comprehend.
todd says
I feel sorry for the guy who works the same line-job for 25 years. HE should have been working hard enough to become the boss. Instead, he’s doing just enough to get by. This is not the sort of attitude that I would want working for me (when I eventually move up the ladder and can hire people). I want people with drive and ambition. Sometimes it’s much easier to find that in the “new colledge(SIC) punk” than the guy who’s “just doing his job”.
In this light I can understand H-Ds move. They can’t come out and say the unions are keeping them from employing productive workers, that would alienate a large portion of their (union member) customer base. It very much sounds like they are playing safe by blaming poor productivity on their location, York. I’m sure they’ll let people move with the company and keep their positions but most will take the compensation instead. There’s no shortage of people wanting to work for H-D and management (the ones that move with the company) will be able to pick the cream of the crop. Ultimately this will result in a better company and better bikes.
Harley doesn’t owe anyone anything more than a paycheck.
-todd
mike fawkes says
More and more manufacturing is going offshore harley has shareholders or who ever they have to answer to, and ultimately they want profit.For us its a passion, for others motorcycles are strictly business if “its not working to its full potential then change it or its gotta go”Harley has faced tough times before I think given time it will come out stronger I also agree they have a few bikes they might want to re evaluate.
Tin Man 2 says
Todd, Back in the day a good worker who knew the ins and outs was eventaully promoted to the Forman position, He came to that position with Know How and the Respect of the other workers, The system worked great. Now Formen are brought in with a degree that has nothing to do with the work at hand, He is carried by the workers until he learns enough to get by,Then he is transfered to another dept to repeat the process. This system promotes loss of morall for the workers and loss of respect for management. A man working and raising a family doesnt see getting a degree at night a usefull tool to getting a promotion, The college kids live with mommy, get a degree and think they should run the world, but know nothing of the work actaully being done. Education has its uses but on the shop floor its know how that is needed !!
todd says
Your scenario suggests they hired the wrong person for the position. If H-D wants to hire a technician or an engineer they don’t hire someone with a degree in sociology.
Recently I applied for a design position at Zero Motorcycles. I didn’t get the job despite the fact that I have a degree in industrial design and am working as a design engineer in automotive and electric vehicle industries, and modify and restore motorcycles. Their reason I didn’t qualify for the job: no experience with designing electric motorcycles.
Someone working the line for 25 years knows how it always has been done and can get it done. Fresh talent (i.e. college kids) have training and ideas on how things can and should be done. Both have equal value to a company; one for immediate results and the other for future strategy.
-todd
JSH says
Tin Man, I’ve not worked for a company yet that brings engineers straight out of school and makes them line supervisors. Supervisors, team leaders, troubleshooters, etc general are promotions for people coming off the line. Engineers are used as engineers, not supervisors. The focus is giving the line worker tools and techniques to do a job more efficiently and a higher level of quality. We don’t just tell people to work harder and faster. A good engineer also gets input from line workers on how to make their jobs better. The person doing the job usually has the best ideas for improvement.
BTW, my first week on the job as a Production Engineer in a Japanese transmission company I went down the line and worked every station. There is not better way to get an idea of what a worker does than to do the job. Note, this was a non-union shop. The union shops I’ve worked in if an engineer picked up a part or did any sort of “production” work they would have a grievance filed against them for taking work from a union employee.
As I said, I’ve also worked for UPS as a teamster. When I was brought into the office to discuss a problem with my performance, my union rep didn’t ask me what had happened or what I did. He simply told me to be quiet and let him do the talking. He then proceeded to tell the manager that I simply hadn’t done what they claimed. He even went so far as to accuse the management team of logging into my scanner and misrouting packages to sabotage the union! I then spoke up said that was crazy, I had screwed up, and would try to do better in the future. Again, the union rep told me to be quiet and then went on a tirade about how even if I had screwed up it STILL wasn’t my fault because obviously it if I made a mistake it was managements lack of training that was the root cause! After the meeting I was chewed out for speaking up and admitting fault. I was told never to admit fault even if I was at fault. He also threatened that if I was going to be a troublemaker they would make my life difficult. We all needed to be team players and team players did what their rep said, didn’t do any extra work, and didn’t work too hard.
As an engineer I’ve seen union reps stick up for an employee that was hiding beer in their car and drinking at lunch and breaks. I’ve also seen them oppose terminations for those that steal, or falsify time records.
What if that slow worker can’t keep up because they have been on the job 25 years? In my experience those with the most seniority move to jobs that require the least amount of work. The most difficult jobs are left to the new guys. However, that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about laying off enthusiastic worker that always does their best and goes the extra mile. Instead we are forced to keep an adversarial slacker that lives by the motto “work to the contract” and only does the bare minimum. It happens all the time.
Paul says
Come on up to Ontario Harley-Davidson!!!
We’ve got all kinds of idled/closed Auto facilities.
Love to have ya in the Great White North!!
Terry says
save harley get rid of the dam uinon move to Ga we will take care of you .