More skilled American auto industry jobs are gone. The three major presidential candidates are campaigning in Indiana, leading-up to that state's Democratic and Republican primaries, both slated for May 6, 2008, just two weeks from now. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have both called-for an end to tax deductions for any company which has "off-shored" what used to be US jobs. John McCain, though, using a shuttered factory yesterday as a backdrop for a "media event", promised to "retrain" workers who had lost their jobs due to off-shoring and plant closings while opining that the lost jobs would probably never return to the US. McCain's "event," which had to be one of the worst-planned and "advanced" of any of the campaigns, at least so far, was tantamount to Hillary Clinton holding a press conference on the lawn of AT&T's corporate headquarters and thnaking "her good friends" in the company, or Barack Obama planning a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser in the parking lot of the drug industry's Washington, DC, lobbying offices. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there was more bad news brewing in Indiana just today. (Photo Above --- "Closed" sign at a Buick plant in Flint, MI).
To paraphrase from the auto industry's weekly newspaper, Automotive News, we learn that:
Citation Corp. will idle its aluminum-molding plant in Butler, Indiana, by the end of July, the company said
today. Citation manufactures cast, machined and assembled components for the automotive, heavy-truck and industrial markets. Operations at the plant, including production and equipment, will be shipped to factories owned by Diversified Machine Inc. in Bristol, Ind., and Milwaukee.
"We continue to focus our strategy on opportunities that enable us to meet our long-term business objectives," Citation CEO Doug Grimm said in a statement. " Divesting a noncore business is a logical step in that process and will ensure Citation remains a strong, viable company." (The guy delivering this terrible news is named "Doug Grimm"; now is that some gallows humor or what?) (Photo --- Non-union worker at a bright, clean automotive plant in America; she is helping build Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Alabama).
Interestingly, this website has learned that Grimm joined Citation Corporation very recently, in January 2008, as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors following various senior management positions in the automotive sector. Previously, Grimm had executive positions at Visteon, where he led that company's $4 billion business relationship with Ford globally, including Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. And we know what just happened to Jaguar and Land Rover ... They are both now owned by an Indian automotive company called Tata. Grimm also had top positions at Metaldyne, Dana and Chrysler. Grimm certainly has had varied experience in dealing with once-great American manufacturing companies with severe financial problems, and we won't even try to address the possible "chicken and egg" possibilities.
Cutting the 138-person work force will begin next month. The company has not released any information regarding severance packages. Citation Corp., of suburban Detroit, ranked No. 85 on the Automotive News list of the top suppliers to North America, with sales totaling $527 million for the 2006 fiscal year. (end of AN story paraphrasing).
Get that? OVER HALF A BILLION DOLLARS IN 2006 SALES for an American company which employs just 138 people ... And the place is so poorly run by its management that they can't even keep their doors open? Or, the company's owners/stockholders are not satisfied with their earnings and have decided to off-shore the company's jobs to a country where unskilled labor making a few bucks an hour can turn-out shoddy products.
The US auto industry, which came off a 70-year-long bender of worldwide domination beginning in the 1970s, has still not turned-around their industry in a way meaningful enough to keep traditional high-paying American jobs in this country. Now THAT'S something which all the candidates had better address this year, and in a big, realistic and meaningful way.
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