Electrolux Closing Webster City Plant

[laundryshark]

I knew it would come down to this.--Laundry Shark

http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/65827402.html

 

[gansky1]

Another blow to the Iowa manufacturing job-base. What a shame. It's just heartbreaking to drive through Newton, IA after Maytag's demise, now another will be lost.

 

[rll70sman]

Here we go! More signs of a "jobless recovery!"

This nation really is going to hell in a handbasket when we see yet more decent-paying jobs go down the tubes because of some more greedy corporate shareholders! Uhhh!!

 

[nmassman44]

Notice in the article where the work is going to??..Mexico. More and more are shifting manufacturing to Mexico since its cheap labor. Something has to be done and soon.

 

[imperial70]

Well that does it. I think any of us that have a Frigidaire (from Electrolux) washer should hold a protest by having the unit delivered to the Augusta GA headquarters saying "No thanks." (Even though the unit I have was made in the US). hat will be the last Electrolux/Frigidaire unit that I buy.
(I'm so upset I don't even know if this makes sense)
I'm not sure I can even think of using it for another load even though it is the only machine that I own. Back to a whirlpool toploader.

 

[toploader55]

You know...

It's a funny thing... I always said what a shame it is how America lost it's work force. At one time people said they were proud to be a part of the "Blue Collar" workers. They were proud to say "I build Maytag Appliances", Or "I work for Fridgedaire". I am a Chef. And I work hard for my money as everyone here does. It won't be long (I hope I don't see it) but robotics will take over the kitchens in restaurants. After working this summer in a seasonal restaurant here on the Cape, I was horrified how young people worked for me that were going to college and graduated high school and could not multiply 5x10 without a calculator. They can't even spell without "Spell Check".
What is happening ??? Potatoes spelled "Podadoes".
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!! We all make mistakes , but C'mon... This is a disgrace.
These days when I tell people what I do as far as collecting Vintage Appliances, I am proud to go off on a roll telling people how Heavy, well constructed, and the age of my collection and how well they work. And do the job in 1/3 the time with a little more water than the crap that is built today. Plus they are 30-40 years old and are still running.
What a shame.

 

[mysteryclock]

Who is left?

OK, so who does this leave making W&Ds in the US? There is Speed Queen in Ripon, WI, GE in Louisville, KY and Bosch (of all companies!) in New Bern, NC. Does Whirl-Tag (May-Pool?) still have any plants in the US?

IIRC, both Samsung and LG are Korea (or at least overseas), Miele is Germany/EU, Asko is Sweden (isn't the XL a reworked LG?)

 

[sudsmaster]

There's always Demanufacturing

Which is the disassembly and recycling of "obsolete" consumer products, including appliances.

Saw it mentioned in a local machine tool expo seminar list.

 

[alr2903]

Suds not to go off topic but why would whrlpl not consider recyling the metal, and some of the parts. They have had the same design for decades now. I mean if they really want to go green, there are Wp's and kmore's on every city street. I guess if their refrigerators and dishwashers save a kilowatt they have done their part. alr2903

 

[ronhic]

Part of the....

....problem is that people, including many of us on here, are not prepared to pay the higher prices for locally manufactured goods.

We want people to have a reasonable living standard, manufacturers to use quality parts AND shareholders to have a fair return on their investments....that all costs money, and two of the easiest ways to save some of that money is...

- reduce quality (tick)
- consolidate and/or move manufacturing (...er...tick)

So, if the great American, British, Australian, Canadian (and other) publics want to buy home made goods, we need to stop screwing retailers et.al. for 'the best' or 'lowest' prices and/or be happy with solid workmanship but fewer features....

Alas, once this trend starts, it doesn't stop until it is all gone UNLESS you are Miele or VZUG who have made a concious choice to target a different buying demographic than other manufacturers who want a finger in all the pies...

 

[circlew]

Whirlpool factories

Whirlpool makes top load washers in Clyde, OH; dryers in Marion, OH; and dishwashers in Findlay, OH.

 

[goatfarmer]

WP still makes refrigerators in Evansville, IN, but that plant is scheduled to close.

 

[magic clean]

Whirlpool also

builds refrigerators in Iowa & Arkansas as well. Ranges in Tulsa and built-in cooking products in Cleveland TN. KitchenAid countertop appliances in Greeville OH. Over 20,000 employed at the various U.S. manufacturing sites.

 

[kqkenmore]

Is the Maytag dishwashing plant still in Jackson Tn? Since Whirlpool took them over.

 

[sudsmaster]

My point was that the flow of products has certainly shifted.

Used to be American manufactured products flowed to other nations, including Asia, where once used up they were "demanufactured" and the raw materials recycled.

Now the flow of manufactured products is from Asia (primarily China), and the once proud American manufacturing sector is being advised to redirect its energies towards dismantling used-up Asian made products and recycling the raw materials.

If we were to take this scenario to the logical absurd (and maybe not that absurd), in time the American population will be reduced to living in shanty towns bordering large smouldering dumps where the population ekes out a living dismantling the products discarded by the ruling class... which would be those who have made fortunes switching the American consumer over from American made products to Chinese made products.

 

[andrewinorlando]

One of biggest problems I have found in comparison shopping is that if you compare just the build quality of the comparable American products to many of the their foreign rivals, the foreigners win. It's a sad day. In many cases though, some of the foreign competition is even somewhat more expensive than domestic rivals, but yet, people still buy it. Why is that? Is it the perception that it's better made? Better value? Snob appeal?

I have not found an American made dishwasher on the market yet that can compete with the build quality of the LG dishwasher. Not one. Whether its the quality/weight of the racks, rigidity of the frame, the solid way the door closes, etc. The LG doesn't even have to be secured in place. It sits inside its own cabinet and is sturdy under all conditions. Why can't America produce a competitively built product? We certainly have the know how and ingenuity? Or would it just cost $3,000 to buy? What's up with this?

 

[magic clean]

KQkenmore

the Maytag-Jackson division closed 8/27/09. A tire manufacturer purchased the facility and will begin production later this year.

 

[danemodsandy]

Rob:

"This nation really is going to hell in a handbasket when we see yet more decent-paying jobs go down the tubes because of some more greedy corporate shareholders! Uhhh!!"

Yep, that's actually the problem, not Americans' supposed unwillingness to pay for American-made products. Corporate America has broken the social contract it used to be part of, and until it begins - willingly or not - to start accepting some responsibility again, we are in deep, deep doo-doo.

There was a time in this nation when our corporations created jobs and paid good wages. That fostered prosperity, which made Americans very good customers of - you guessed it - corporations. The guy who bolted Fords together wore coveralls washed in his Maytag washer, ate food from Kraft cooked on a General Electric range, slicked his hair down with something from Procter & Gamble, and got up in time for his shift courtesy of his Westclox Big Ben. The folks at Kraft and Westclox and Maytag and the rest of the companies drove Fords; we had a system that was in pretty reasonable balance.

There was more to it. Those factory workers had a very reasonable expectation of job continuity. Someone in his late 20s could sign a 30-year mortgage on a tract house in the near-certain knowledge that he would pay it off without incident. He built equity, which benefitted him, he paid taxes, which benefitted his town, and he got to burn the mortgage before he retired, which benefitted everybody, since his now free-and-clear house was both an asset that could be leveraged, and a dirt-cheap place to live. Even better, this man (let's call him Joe Lunchbucket) was not a burden to his family or commmunity in his old age; he was able to amass wealth in the form of that house, some savings, and some pension and other benefits.

Well, as Joe Lunchbucket himself might say, them days is gone. Corporations now outsource their manufacturing to whatever far-flung place has the lowest labour cost, closing Stateside plants and pocketing the difference in profits. The effect on individuals and communities has been dramatic. It is much less possible for younger people to get an honest, affordable 30-year conventional mortgage. They're often stretched out on very high payments for "durable" goods that aren't that durable. They can't save much, if anything. And when their jobs vanish, they often lose what little foothold they've gained, becoming net burdens to their communities. Their pensions can disappear or become greatly diminished in mergers and acquisitions.

Their foreclosed houses become eyesores and crime scenes and even health hazards. Their health problems become everyone's, because their only means of getting care is a taxpayer-funded public E.R. Their towns' services have to be sharply curtailled or even cut out entirely, due to shrinking tax bases. Despairing unemployed often turn to drugs for both solace and economic opportunity, with the result that crime flourishes in places that were once solid middle-class communities. And it gets worse, because these people being ignored by the system are still young for the moment, but as they age, the grim truth will be that they will often be unable to house and care for themselves through their own resources.

To my way of thinking, we are going to have to demand that corporations begin to participate in the social contract once more, or face severe penalties. We have entire cities like Newton and Flint and Toledo that are going down the tubes because the corporations that put them there have stopped feeling any responsibility towards either the people who work for them or the people who buy from them. We're in the middle of a very bad economic downturn, and largely because people in charge of Corporate America have either forgotten - or don't care - that the Ford guy has to be paid decently so that he can buy from the Procter & Gamble guy so the Procter & Gamble guy can buy from the General Electric guy.

The signs that Corporate America is shooting itself in the foot are everywhere. Every company I've mentioned here is facing competition from either offshore entities, or from lower-priced generic goods. The guy who used to have a Ford and shop at A&P and wash his clothes with Tide is now driving a Kia, getting food from ALDI, and buying Huish detergent. Joe is not contributing as much to Corporate America's wellbeing as he used to - because he can't - and it's largely because Corporate America has stopped contributing to Joe's wellbeing. The only thing Corporate America wants from Joe now is his signature on a credit-card receipt, so it can charge him 21 percent interest on top of the other obscene profits it wants to make off him in the form of selling him high-priced, short-lived crap and eliminating his job.

I grew up in a world where daddies almost always had jobs, where foreclosures were something that happened a long, long time ago in the Depression, where the Depression couldn't possibly happen again, where no one got their utilities shut off for inability to pay, where Dad had health-care coverage that took care of everyone, where no one had ever heard of a cheque-cashing store or Rent-a-Center or title loans.

I'd like to get back to that world. It will be complicated, because the world is a very different place today. But I think that the key to re-achieving the basic stability I'm talking about is to demand responsiblity from Wall Street. Much is made of the idea that Americans don't buy American any more, or that unions should become either all-powerful again or non-existent, or whatever. The basic problem is profiteering, folks. Wall Street demands that a company's stock price go upward, ever upward. It's too tempting to shutter a 75-year-old factory, move operations offshore at a much lower labour cost, and declare an illusory "profit" because you've just put 2500 tax-paying Americans out of work - Americans who now cannot properly afford their basic living expenses, much less your product.

I do not blame other nations. They're shooting for the dream as best they can, and for now, many of them are making huge strides. Things are possible for the average Chinese worker today that were undreamt-of twenty years ago, and that's good. But that worker is still not paid at parity with an American one, and his uptick in good fortune comes - for the moment - out of hide of other countries' workers (not just American) and that's bad. And much of today's corporate scenario is flawed. Right now, oil is cheap and it makes economic sense to ship washers and fridges from China. That won't be true forever, and when the paradigm shifts, both America and China will be hurting. Mexico is a hit with manufacturers right now, but Mexico is a politically unstable country, and what happens if it takes some cues to its neighbours from the south and starts nationalising industries?

We have to demand that our corporations stop focussing on this quarter's stock price and begin focussing on sustainable, responsible growth. If we don't, we're all going down the tubes together, and that includes the workers in Mexico and China, because the financial forces that dictate whether or not they have jobs are the same as here.

It's very simple. We either somehow get back to a corporate structure that generates jobs and prosperity for many people instead of obscene profits for a very few, or we can look forward to the day when begging bowls are on sale at Wal-Mart.

I'm off my soapbox.

 

[circlew]

Sandy, you hit the nail on the head!

My dear Mother, gone 14 years now, used to say "this country will ruin itself from within". At the time I thought she was "out of her tree". But looks like she was right.