Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GC_Super]

Keeping Buell under the HD umbrella was one of several attempts to draw a younger customer base.  The hopes were that is would bring the 20 something crowd in and as they "aged" they would make a lateral move to HD.  HD is under new senior management and this is one of many new changes that will be coming. CVO operations are on the move.  "Dark Customs" line is being pushed to draw the attention of the "younger" buyers.  Softail Deluxe was an attempt to gain more of the woman market (sorry for all you guys who own one........its a great bike and if I had a smaller inseam I would have bought one).  The VROD and the list goes on.  Change is happening and I would venture to say that a liquid cooled touring bike is not too far off as well as the retirement of the V-twin motor.  I'm "all in" supporting the motor co but it is going to be a crazy next 2-3 years 

As it pertains to the CVO bikes, this months American Rider paints a pretty bad picture of the York assemply plant. Very unhappy employees, lots of sick days, etc. They ( HD ) would love to shut it down due to the employee morale there. The mag also referred to the CVO bikes as ones that have the most turnover and the most depreciation. I agree with most of the CVO line, wityh the Electra glides being the exception due to touring riders being more serious about riding and not just showing off at the bars.
They also mention that HD has been shopping around for some cheaper labor overseas. I can't imagine HD's being assembled anywhere but the good old USA.

[CVOStreetglide]

I Hope you're wrong. It seems to me to be a shame that the employees union or not would want to do everything they can to keep the York plant open. It's a BIG part of the local economy and there isn't much else up there in the way of businesses that they can go to work for. 

CVO resales--In my experience it has been quite the opposite. I see these bikes as a separate market and more in demand than the conventional models. The Price retention is good---not great. But who cares I am going to ride mine for a few years. 

[Twolanerider]

I Hope you're wrong.

May or may not be.  And probably somewhere between either sides version of reality anyway.  One thing I'd not do, however, is immediately assume that any bike rag's rendition of a potential labor dispute is not a company favored version of the story.  They suck that teat too hard to be fair, and have for a long long time.

[spydglide]

I'm all for 'jobs', but the assembly of the HD's by the good ole USA union types sure hasn't proven to be of the highest quality.....just saying.  spyder

[FLSTFI Dave]

I Hope you're wrong. It seems to me to be a shame that the employees union or not would want to do everything they can to keep the York plant open. It's a BIG part of the local economy and there isn't much else up there in the way of businesses that they can go to work for. 

CVO resales--In my experience it has been quite the opposite. I see these bikes as a separate market and more in demand than the conventional models. The Price retention is good---not great. But who cares I am going to ride mine for a few years. 

While I fully agree with your premiss my question is "What union have you seen that has worked to help keep a plant?" 

Seems UAW did not do much to try to help GM or Chrysler.

Harley has been looking at KY and TN to move the york plant, TN is a right to work state.  I think KY is too.
 

[grc]

As it pertains to the CVO bikes, this months American Rider paints a pretty bad picture of the York assemply plant. Very unhappy employees, lots of sick days, etc. They ( HD ) would love to shut it down due to the employee morale there. The mag also referred to the CVO bikes as ones that have the most turnover and the most depreciation. I agree with most of the CVO line, wityh the Electra glides being the exception due to touring riders being more serious about riding and not just showing off at the bars.
They also mention that HD has been shopping around for some cheaper labor overseas. I can't imagine HD's being assembled anywhere but the good old USA.

And I suppose that "morale" problem was created by the union and the workers with no help from MoCo management.  It has been my experience in approximately 35 years in a similar industry that management reaps what it sows.  And now rather than step up and work toward fair and equitable resolution of the issues leading to the poor morale, they would rather fold up the tent (with huge tax write-offs of course) and find some state that will hand them the keys to the treasury to subsidize a new factory, and then find new nonunion employees who will likely have fewer "morale" problems, at least initially.  Once they have abused the taxpayers for all the subsidies they can squeeze out of the local politicians, it would surprise me if they didn't move the operations overseas anyway.

I'm sure a lot of folks couldn't imagine having their Maytag's, Sylvania's, RCA's, etc. made anywhere but in the USA, but look around and make note of just where all those "American" brands are really made.  Nowdays the only thing American about many products is the brand name; parts and labor are all from overseas.  I don't see any reason why H-D will be any different, it's just a matter of time.  All the better for management if they can make it seem to be the result of unions and bad workers, rather than their own poor management and greed. 

Jerry

[grc]

I'm all for 'jobs', but the assembly of the HD's by the good ole USA union types sure hasn't proven to be of the highest quality.....just saying.  spyder

I totally agree spyder, the quality from H-D has been totally underwhelming for some time now.  Do you think it would get better if they used Chinese child labor to assemble the cheap Chinese out-of-spec parts? 

It's been my experience that management is responsible for quality, not the guy on the assembly line.  Some rather highly regarded folks in industry say the same thing, including the father of Japanese Quality Control, W. Edwards Deming.  Leave it to Harley management to try to lay all their issues on the workers, just like they lay stuff off on their customers.  Must be a wonderful life, being blameless and perfect like the clowns running that company (into the ground).

Jerry

[harley56]

Back in the 80's Harley went to M.A.N., Material As Needed, also called J.I.T. Just In Time for their supply and manufacturing process.  (Learned it from the Japenese) It put quality control in the hands of the people on the line - they did their own inspecting, not someone else after a days worth of production was complete.  Did great things for morale and quality, basically the QC dept. at York was able to scale way back.  Don't know what's happened over the years. 
Anyway, I do know the new C.E.O. is looking at all avenues to stay competitive, that being said they probably can build and assemble in places more competitive than York.  Maybe they will need to do that, I hope not.  I do know there are agreements in place with the union that hurts and it's not all about wages.  As an example they aren't building sportsters and haven't for quite awhile.  Are there dealers that need sportsters, yes there are, especially Nightsters and Irons and Harley knows it.  Problem is to get the people back to build those bikes they need to bring people back in order of seniority, so they may need to bring a few fork lift drivers back to get to a person that can build Nightsters and Irons.  I'm sure these kind of limitations are more than a little frustrating.

[Grizzly]

CVO bikes as ones that have the most turnover and the most depreciation.

This could be simply a play on words... Obviously the most expensive bikes have the chance of the biggest depreciation if you're calculating by a percentage!

However, it's been demonstrated time and time again that in fact the CVO's DO hold their value the best, due to their exclusivity and the high demand to own the best bikes in the world!

[ice6900]

latest on MV

http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/HD_News/Company/newsarticle.jsp?locale=en_US&articleLink=News/0608_press_release.hdnews&newsYear=2009&history=news