WSJ: As Detroit Slashes Car Jobs, Southern Towns Pick Up Slack

[question everything]

As Detroit Slashes Car Jobs, Southern Towns Pick Up Slack

Overseas Firms Pour In Seeking Commitment to Education
And High-Skill Workers
Osceola's Charter-School Spat
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 1, 2006; Page A1

OSCEOLA, Ark. -- Long-time industrial strongholds such as Michigan are losing manufacturing jobs as the U.S.'s auto industry struggles to compete. But massive job cuts by Detroit have overshadowed an important change in U.S. manufacturing. Asian and European auto companies, looking for skilled workers to make complex products, have created nearly enough new jobs in the U.S. to make up the difference.

This small city of about 9,000, set amid soybean and cotton fields on the west bank of the Mississippi, is one place that has benefited. In 2003, Osceola persuaded Denso Corp., an affiliate of Toyota Motor Corp., to locate a new plant in town producing car air-conditioning and heating systems. The usual bevy of financial incentives helped, but for Denso, there was a clinching factor: Osceola's efforts to improve local education by creating a charter school.

(snip)

Top-tier automotive suppliers such as Denso, Robert Bosch GmbH and Delphi Corp. use similar equipment and techniques to make competing products. The difference between them, therefore, often comes down to whose workers can produce the most goods at the highest quality. "It takes a deeper understanding than just pushing the red and green buttons to start and shut off those machines," Mr. McGuire says. Dan Gaudette, Nissan Motor Co.'s North American manufacturing chief, says it is hard to find highly skilled workers in Tennessee and Mississippi, where it produces cars and trucks. "That's why education is critical," he says. To cope, Nissan runs after-school programs to help students familiarize themselves with robotics.

The plants built by Asian and European companies produce complex products or auto parts that are too expensive to ship to the U.S. for assembly. They have helped sustain U.S. auto-manufacturing employment at about one million workers. That is roughly the same as in 1990, despite the loss of tens of thousands of jobs at General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler unit and some of their big suppliers. That total doesn't include recently announced future job cuts.

(snip)


URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113876525094261839.html (subscription)

[kenny blankenship]

1. So there's nothing to worry about? WOW I never thought of it that way!

THANKS A MILLION, Wall Street Journal!

[napi21]

2. It's a good plan, but doesn't always work out that way.

I remember reading several articles about one auto company decided to build their plant in Canada instead of one of our Southern States because an already existing asr co. in the South (Nissan I think) told them they had tried very hard to train the employees to efficiently use the equipment, and they're just NOT LEARNING! This wasn't that many months ago either.

[BayCityProgressive]

3. Here in Michigan

Granholm is courting Toyota for jobs and plants.

[question everything]

4. And, of course, the plants in the south are not unionized

Still, I think that many move to Canada because they can save so much on health insurance.

The push for national health insurance really will have to come from CEOs.

[madmom]

5. these are "right to work " states no union, low pay, few benefits.

[Blue_Tires]

6. exactly n/t

[Dave Reynolds]

8. Not necessarily,

Union jobs at the Big Three plants pay a dollar or two more an hour - about $26 an hour compared with $24 or $25 an hour for the nonunion jobs at the foreign plants. But compensation at the American automakers swells to an average of $55 an hour when health care, cost of living and other benefits are counted, compared with $48 an hour, on average, at Toyota.
In a state (Alabama) where the average wage is $31,000 a year, according to the Commerce Department, Toyota's workers earn $45,000 on average, with overtime, plus a benefits package valued by the company at $10,000. Workers receive medical, dental and life insurance coverage; a traditional pension plan and a 401(k) plan; an allowance for child care; and an annual cash bonus, which was $3,850 a worker last year.


http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004693.php

[jzodda]

7. A Tired old Argument

First they move from the heavily unionized states with good wages and benefits to workers, then to southern states that havent changed their rules for wages and benefits since before the civil war, then they say they can't compete there either and leave the country for good.

This is more political cover for Bushco and friends, but a lame attempt.

[wishlist]

9. True, N.C. has lost many auto related manufacturing jobs in recent years

In Western NC, Continental Teves recently closed their plants that make brakes and moved to Mexico (even though much more humid sea-level conditions in Mexico where they relocated these plants are resulting in a lot of problematic rust in the brake parts)