While reading the many posts about the outrageous pricing that Le Blond was trying to charge for a simple tailstock ram, I did some search about South Bend and found this article
- posted
19 years ago
While reading the many posts about the outrageous pricing that Le Blond was trying to charge for a simple tailstock ram, I did some search about South Bend and found this article
Hmm. You're right. They should have just fired those 500 guys and liquidated the company in the '70s. That would have been much better.
Jim
While this is an interesting financial story, it has what exactly to do with the price of tailstock tubes or the price of parts?
Throughout the article, I see constant references to pension plans, big labor interferance and power structure struggles, but no mention of parts costings.
Gunner
"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke
Ayup..then the tailstock tubes wouldnt be available NOS at any price.
Gunner
"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke
The point is that the problems with South Bend resulted from high cost of production, mostly stemming from labor, pension etc., not necessarily materials costs. South Bend then did an innovative thing in the ESOP, but failed to make fundamental changes in the lock step mentality of the workforce. Your typical union guy says " Today I am getting 20.00 per hour for 8 hours work and by God tomorrow I should be getting at least 21.00 per hour OR only work 7.5 hours." In other words, as the world economy evolves and changes, he locks himself rigidly into the system to which he is accustomed and crys like a baby when his plant finally closes. So what does this have to do with that 330.00 tailstock ram? Its the same mentality that is driving these people. How did they arrive at that price? If its NOS, then the WWII price was probably under 1.00- did they just multiply the old price by some arbitrary figure like the distance from Cleveland to Cincinnatti? Do you think any one from Le Blond ever went to the warehouse and picked up this piece and said to himself " Boy what a bargain - only 330.00 !!" Do you think the parts guy would gleefully pay
330.00 for a set of spark plugs for his Studebaker Champion just because they had been sitting on the shelf for 50 years?
...and we'd be discussing how one would go about building one on a machine tool, rather than this overlong OT thread :)
Yep, Pension funds get a big mention as a way that companies loose cash to keep working.
Whoa. There was also the typical "managment attitude" problem where "we have to be in control and make all the decisions" where they set it up so they controlled "unallocatted shares", which dwarfed the other shares.
The other problem was that the workers union let them down. It was the union that was unable to adapt to representing their members in a different environment.
So, you had a situation where everyone was suppossed to have a stake in the situation, but the workers really didn't.
Where've you been, the OP has fixed one up about 20 posts ago. It's all over but the hollering. And there's always plenty of that!
Jim
Perhaps I'm slow, but I don't see the connection between the story of South Bend as told in the article and the issues you're discussing. It sounds like the root cause was the union's inwillingness to get involved exacerbated by poor management techniques. (The reason for putting it in that order is that if the union had been more involved the management could have been replaced.)
Of course I could be wrong. :-)
--RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr.
Maybe if they would have spent some of there time on product design they may have stood a chance in the marketplace. South Bend sold the same lathe that they built in 1929 (with the addition of a threading gear box and L00 spindle) in 1981 - o wait that was a 10"
Brad Morgan - proud owner of a 9" model C
sparkplug question if you cannot find them any were pay the money he has it you need it the intrest on the money
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