Plant closing

[Beez]

Don't blame you for being a skeptic. I have close family and friends who work at the Belleville plant. One family member will have 29 years of service at the end of April. There is no way he will be able to get 30 years in, though he may have work through June. The difference of 30 years and less than 30 translates to almost $800 a month reduction in his pension pay.

One guy has worked there for 33 years, but is only 53. He will get the full pension, but no health benefits for his family. That is immoral.

A younger worker has 13 years in, two little kids and his wife has cancer. He will get a small severance pay and no benefits. His father and grandfather retired from the Belleville plant, though when it owned by different corporations, and before companies started handing out million-dollar bonuses to their executives.

It's ironic that CNH's Company Code of Conduct includes an age discrimination clause, which is basically what the board of directors committed when they made the decision to close Belleville.

The farm equipment plant in Belleville has operated for over 100 years. It was bought first by New Holland, then became Sperry New Holland, then Ford New Holland. After being purchased by Fiat, it became Case New Holland in 1999.

They recently brought in Mexican workers and are asking the employees to train them. Plus, they want volunteers to go to Mexico to set up the equipment there. This exporting of jobs is nuts, when America has the manpower and desire to do the work.

Belleville is not an exemption, this is happening all over our great country. Welcome to corporate America.

 

[TCBoomer]

Don't blame you for being a skeptic. I have close family and friends who work at the Belleville plant. One family member will have 29 years of service at the end of April. There is no way he will be able to get 30 years in, though he may have work through June. The difference of 30 years and less than 30 translates to almost $800 a month reduction in his pension pay.

One guy has worked there for 33 years, but is only 53. He will get the full pension, but no health benefits for his family. That is immoral.

A younger worker has 13 years in, two little kids and his wife has cancer. He will get a small severance pay and no benefits.

Meanwhile CNH executives get million-dollar bonuses.

It's ironic that CNH's Company Code of Conduct includes an age discrimination clause, which is basically what the board of directors committed when they made the decision to close Belleville.

The farm equipment plant in Belleville has operated for over 100 years. It was bought first by New Holland, then became Sperry New Holland, then Ford New Holland. After being purchased by Fiat, it became Case New Holland in 1999.

They recently brought in Mexican workers and are asking the employees to train them. Plus, they want volunteers to go to Mexico to set up the equipment there. This exporting of jobs is nuts, when America has the manpower and desire to do the work.

Belleville is not an exemption, this is happening all over our great country. Welcome to corporate America.

Glad to see you reply back...I actually believed there was more truth to what your first post stated, than what you were given credit for.

 

[MikePA]

Don't blame you for being a skeptic.

Thanks. Threads like this are no different than someone posting about a bad experience with a dealer. No matter how righteous the story, we're still only hearing one side of the 'truth' which is why 'dealer bashing' threads are not allowed on TBN.

For example, someone else could have posted something at the other end of the spectrum such as;

The Belleville plant was the worst, most inefficient and costly plant at CNH and the union was trying to bleed the company dry with demands for exorbitant pension and health care benefits, union officials are pulling in million dollar salaries and this is going on in every union in America these days. Unions were once needed but now all they're about is graft and destroying the companies that made this country great. CNH really had no choice if they wanted to stay in business and keep hundreds of other people employed.​

While the previous example about CNH is fiction, had someone posted this, how would we know what the truth is and who to give 'credit' to?

 

[riptides]

Belleville is not an exemption, this is happening all over our great country. Welcome to corporate America.

Good luck to you all. Not a knock on you or the people hurt by this closing, but this trend is NOT new. I believe it was the Pabst company that had the misfortune of starting down the road of sinking pension plans almost a decade ago. Many companies, including my own, have resorted to "restructuring" these plans under new corporate tax laws.

It is best if one can look hard for other opportunities to invest other than ones company. This should include insurance, and a health plan of some sort.

-Mike Z.

 

[Beez]

There was never a union in Belleville. Their work was respected, they turned out a good product for a decent wage, and so an agreement and handshake were good enough.

Business was booming on the day that they announced the plant closing. For weeks, guys were working 10 hours a day and Saturdays. The plant manager was as surpised and distraught over the announcement as the production workers. He hated to be the one to tell them, but intended to call a meeting at the beginning of each shift so that he could inform them personally. But company executives were so eager to release the report of their successful 3rd quarter, that they sent out a press release which included one sentence about the plant closings in Belleville, PA and Goodfield, Il. When the plant manager heard about the press release, he asked supervisors to notify second and third-shift employees by phone, but some first heard the news on the radio.

This decision was not made locally, nor was it made by board members who first visited to see the plant in action and shake hands with the workers. This decision was made by executives who looked only at numbers, not faces,and saw a way to cut costs of benefits through a "head count reduction." Board members approved it without having to consider anything other than the bottom line, and they got well paid to attend the board meeting to do it.

The decision may have looked good on paper, but I'm afraid that CNH's dealers and customers will pay dearly for it down the line. Belleville workers took pride in making an excellent product, and costs can only be cut so far before quality and profits are cut, too.

"Don't mess with success" was once a standard rule in business, and with a $67 million profit in one quarter, CNH should have adherred to it.

 

[MossRoad]

Heck, the Studebaker workers all lost their UAW pensions in '62. This is nothing new. It sucks... but it has been happening for a long time for many reasons. In the case of Studebaker, in 1959 they agreed to pay higher wages to avoid a union strike, knowing they could not afford it. The UAW knew their pension plan was not getting funded and ignored it for the immediate bennefit of higher wages for their union members. Four years later the company went belly up with no funding for their pension. Folks with 40 years lost everything. This was one of the main reasons for pension funding reform in this country. However, even after that was passed in the 70's, several more automotive related businesses in the South Bend, IN area went belly up and the workers, many from Studebaker, lost their pensions again. I know two old timers that recently passed away. They were working as watchmen at my employer. They were in their late 70's and both were three time losers(their words, not mine) when it came to union pensions. They had to work until the day they died.

Today, in 2006, over 40 years after it closed, over half the Studebaker plant still stands a rotting eyesore in downtown South Bend, IN. Click here for a google map of South Bend. ALL of the large building from the railroad tracks to the bottom of the image with the exception of the round buildings (a new jail) are the remnants of that factory.

According to the old timers, the running joke in South Bend was when someone asked you if you worked at Studebaker, you replied "I am employed at Studebaker, but no one 'works' at Studebaker!" and then you laughed real hard... until 1962.

 

[ccsial]

Look at the bright side, when WW3 starts we should be OK since there will be no factories to bomb.

 

[oscer]

Look at the bright side, when WW3 starts we should be OK since there will be no factories to bomb.

Yea,but where are are we going to "tool up" to build the war machine?

 

[oscer]

Today while talkin to one of the NH employees,I mentioned that part of the reason I chose JD over NH was because the local NH dealer lost their franchise right before I was ready to buy.He said "yea well,JD just pulled all their equipment out of our local Deere dealership".He didn't know wheather they actually lost the franchise or not,but it didn't sound good to me