Freightliner plans Mexico factory despite layoffs elsewhere

[OhioChick]

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

DaimlerChrysler's Portland-based Freightliner unit will build a $300 million truck plant in Mexico to meet a surge in long-term demand even as it prepares for as many as 4,000 North America layoffs next year.

The site is in Saltillo, Coahuila, Freightliner said today in a statement. It will be the second Mexico factory for Freightliner, the world's largest truckmaker.

Freightliner is counting on sales to rise after 2007. For next year, company chief Andreas Renschler expects North American truck output may fall 39 percent because 2006 purchases jumped before new U.S. emissions rules boost prices on Jan. 1.

"This news comes as a surprise after their talk about layoffs," said Stephen Pope, a Cantor Fitzgerald analyst in London. "There has to be a major cost advantage or incentive for this plant to get the go-ahead after the layoff. Freightliner may also be easing out of one relatively high-cost area in North America in favor of a lower-cost one."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003487253_webfreightliner20.html

[Trajan]

1. This is the way ....

I worked at a high tech aerospace corporation in So Cal that had existed since the 40's, and had numerous 'campuses' around the LA basin ....

In the mid 80's, they opened a manufacturing plant in El Paso, and began hiring locals, who were primarily from the Matamoros region .... Mind you: you cannot fabricate defense hardware in a foreign country, but you can get as close as you can get to Mexico without actually BEING in Mexico in El Paso ...

Over time, and after years of attrition and movement of our orders to El Paso, I was eventually laid off after 22 years of service ..... I just received a message from one of my former co workers: they are closing the campus, a division that arose in an orange grove in 1961 near Fullerton CA, where the orange county region grew up around the plant over the years and became homes for the 40,000 or so workers at the height of employment ...

The union brothers and sisters will NOT be offered a transfer option ... They are simply done with them ....

I have 2 years left of senority recall, but I will be unable to exercize that option ...

I dont know that status of the El Paso plant, but last I heard, they are booming ....

That was as close to 'outsourcing' as a defense contractor can get ... and they succeeded in killing the high wage jobs were had, and moving the whole operation to low wage, low rent climes ....

Cest La Vie ... nothing we can do about that ..... right ? ...

Those workers will NOT be buying durable goods or new homes anymore .. Like me: they will sell their real estate so the dont lose it, and strike out to regions where jobs exist .... with a cut in pay ....

I was lucky to get our early, I suppose ....

[Parche]

2. freightliner

Figures, I live in PDX and that will hurt the local economy, but they can all move to Mexico???


We have to stop the farming out, and moving of our jobs overseas, or to closer Mexico,
this is ridiculous.

[Dr.Phool]

3. I guess Chrysler forgot who bailed them out when they were going bust.

[nealmhughes]

4. No fornicating feces!

Talk about ingrates!