Posted by Kevin in Ohio on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 11:59:48 :
In Reply to: Re: Made in China posted by MoparNorm on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 09:41:34 :
One Cooper Plant is here in Dayton and have/had a few friends works there. They have downsized and according to them, Cooper now has some of it's tires made outside of the U.S. as well. I believe they said it was Mexico(you know, little California ;))
The place I work for opened a plant in China almost a year ago. Here some FACTS you may not know.
China will NOT accept ANY used machinery in any of the plants. Everything must be brand new. Our company tried and they held it at the dock and it came back.
Plants have to be built to THEIR specs so they can be used for other purposes if "we decide" to move out. Pictures I've seen look like an airplane hanger with about 2 -3 story high ceilings.
Living spaces(basically bunkhouses) are built on shght to keep workers there. From what THEY(our company) told us most workers come from the countryside and work for about 2 years and themn go home or do something else. To go home it takes basically one months worth of wages to get ther. They have a 1 or 2 week vacation every year(some holiday I can't remember) and that's when they normally don't come back.
All this should send Red flags(pun intended) to any sane person of what's going to happen but this is blind greed.
They send our NEW equipment, PAY for a factory, TRAIN them HOW to make our products and expect our goverment to protect their investment when the Chinese goverment "see ya"
The biggest kicker is this plant has been operational now for over 6 months. They have not shipped a single part out because of some clause saying they can only sell INSIDE China. So all the workers are "practicing" until they get it straightened out. They actually told us this but yet the reason we don't get profit sharing anymore is because we don't increase our efficentcy 5% EVERY year.
I try to buy US only but it's getting next to impossible anymore. It ain't pretty out there and I'm afraid it isn't going to get any better. Kevin
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