Breaking: Navistar says adios to Fort Wayne, and screw you UAW
Posted by AWB in Fort Wayne, UnionsDeveloping: Navistar just told its Fort Wayne employees screw you, we’re leaving over the next 24- 36 months. 1100 Navistar jobs gone. So, screw you UAW.
Update: From Jim Sack – roving reporter.
Mayor Tom Henry has just announced a planned phase down in Fort Wayne over the next two to three years. He adds the city is “fighting” to save jobs at the test track. Nine hundred to 1,000 jobs will be lost. Henry added that he had spoken with the governor and he “is 100% behind our efforts,” whatever that means.
Henry’s statement follows:
Statement of Mayor Tom Henry on recent news from Navistar:
Fort Wayne, Ind. – Thank you all for coming on such short notice, but the issue is one of the highest importance to our community.
This afternoon I spoke with an official from Navistar about the future of the company and its exceptional employees here in our community.
I can tell you three things:
1. Navistar is initiating a planned phase down of operations over the next 24 to 36 months to create an integrated, product development function for the company. No further details were offered;
2. We talked at length about the possibilities with the test track here and Navistar’s need for this resource. We believe there are opportunities and we will pursue them aggressively; and
3. Navistar CEO Daniel Ustian has accepted the invitation to meet with Mark Williams of Strategic Development Group, the national site selector engaged by the Alliance and the City of Fort Wayne, to discuss the company’s future in our community and possibilities for future options here.
I have been in regular contact with Governor Daniels’ office and the Governor supports Fort Wayne’s efforts 100%.
Even with this news, and we understand Navistar’s desire to remain competitive, we believe strongly that there are options here in Fort Wayne that will add real value to Navistar’s success.
As we have said consistently, we believe there is no better place than Fort Wayne for good jobs to grow and companies to prosper. We remain confident that there are no better employees than the talented and ready workforce we have right here. And even faced with the unknown as we are today, we know there is no more welcoming community that the one you will find in Fort Wayne.
This is what we can share with you today, but I anticipate additional announcements tomorrow as we continue our fight for good jobs and business investment in our community.
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The unions get what they deserve. I won't claim to know the intimate details, but if it's your typical situation, the unions are sitting around thinking they hold all the cards, forgetting that those jobs are just as easily performed by folks in third-world countries for pennies on the dollar.
My question: Does that high-priced consultant(s) that the administration hired to keep Navistar in Fort Wayne give us our money back? Does the Henry administration give us our money back? Or will they hire another consultant to tell us how bad it's going to be without Navistar?
How anyone can support an employee union in this day & age is beyond understanding! And how International could survive for as long as they did with an engineers union in Fort Wayne is also impossible to understand. And with a Democrat mentallity in regard to unions, it's no wonder that our mayor would waste another "just under $100,000" to pay a lobbiest firm to get Fort Wayne the message!!! You have no idea how much this will benefit the Fort Wayne area in getting potential new companies to consider opening up in Fort Wayne – the whole Northern half of Indiana has been regarded as "union run" for a long time – especially in regard to the UAW. Witness how they have left our area in droves over the past 10 years or so!
I'm really sorry to hear about this news… I hope they find some solution that provides local opportunities for this talented workforce.
I hope Navistar is willing to buy all their displaced workers homes.1000 more houses on a already depressed market equals a lot more foreclosures and bankruptcies.What are they thinking.
I would really like to know what Fort Wayne has done in the past to make Navistar so set on getting everything out of here.
First it was production to Ohio, and now it is engineering to IL.
The higher ups at Navistar really do not like this area for some reason.
I spoke with a mayoral rep last night after council. They are trying to keep the track here, and the associated jobs. They are trying to plumb other depths with Navistar that might, might lead to some jobs staying or being created here. I doubt Navistar cares a whit about Fort Wayne. Perhaps this is a move on their part to create a bargaining chip with their white collar works. Hard to tell what all of this means, except within 24 to 36 months most of those high-paying, quality jobs will migrate to the Chicago area. You may remember when the new Lincoln leadership took many of our best jobs to Philadelphia to be closer to the financial markets. They have their reasons: hub airport, better theaters, the boss grew up there, whatever. The jobs are portable. So, what do we do? Gotta make some effort to keep the jobs here. You just never know whether Navistar is telling anyone the truth. But, it reminds us that we should make every effort to streamline our permitting and regulation of local businesses so the next Lincoln can get a flying start here and can grow to provide those new jobs. We have been through this better in 83, we will survive this and renew the community. But there was a nice comparison made of two cities that years ago were of similar size and prosperity, one now increasingly prosperous, the other hollow out and dying.
The best line the mayor said yesterday concerned the governor. He is fully behind us. I want to ask what the specifics of that might be, but I am not a member of the real press, so I held my tongue. Governor Daniels also offered his support, in a most tepid fashion, for high speed rail, so I take any support from Indy with many grains of salt.
These are pretty well paid engineers, they won't be looking for work here, they're gonna move. Adios Ft Wayne.
" Governor Daniels also offered his support, in a most tepid fashion, for high speed rail, so I take any support from Indy with many grains of salt. "
That's because Daniels is smart enough to know high speed rail is a gazillion dollar loser sink hole.
Check out Job Search Scam in Fort Wayne.
The nuts and bolts of the "plan" is to spend lots of money with the Workforce Northeast corporation to retool and operate its very own Partners of WorkOne.org website (already dedicated to Navistar employees by the way) for the exclusive benefit of some 300 engineers, presently employed by Navistar, to find jobs that they do not now need in and around Fort Wayne.
Sorry, Gad, I do not follow. Please expand your thought. The last line, though, bothers me a tad. I would think that we want to help our neighbors and fellow residents stay here, so if we are concocting some sort of plan to help them find jobs that sounds good to me, on face value. Given their skill levels they will not easily find work in this area. The higher you go the thinner the air. So, I am happy to help set up a system that keeps as many of those people here as is possible, including finding ways to help them establish businesses, here.
Jim:
It really doesn't surprise me that you do not understand. If you read my piece, I said that engineers are quite capable of chasing the many advertised jobs available now on the other already established job seeker sites. In these worst of times that available engineering job count has to be over 100 in the Fort Wayne area right now. So would you concede that if the economy turns for the better in 2 to 3 years when they are required to change jobs, the chance of hooking up with another company will be even better, I also implied that many of the engineers will move to Illinois or elsewhere with Navistar.
If Jim Sack 's employer put him out of work tomorrow, would the government do a similar deal for you? Since the answer is "no," why are we providing this service to a professional engineer?
As for a system to help these folks establish their own businesses, the SCORE office downtown is open everyday and the services provided by these retired executives is free to all. Frankly, I would not want to be the guy advising people to risk their retirement savings by starting a new business now …or did you have in mind that taxpayer money would be used to help start the businesses?
If this is the reason that I am being taxed, I want my money back.
Sorry, Gad, I left the employ of others a few years back. I want local government to make every effort to keep as many of these people here as they can. If it is merely serving as a central in-take, as a clearing house, as a counseling center, fine. I would like to help these, folk, some my neighbors, transition smoothly.
I'll give you a hint. We wanted to do something last Sunday so we drove down to Indy. Fort Wayne is a dull place. Granted the people from Convoy and Payne come here to have a good time but Halls or House of Hunan just don't cut it for the movers and shakers of this town.
,,,for the exclusive benefit of some 300 engineers, presently employed by Navistar,….(err…300 UAW Design Engineers)…unionized design engineers?…how exactly do you 'metric' a union design engineer ?…hmm…
Select Bolt from Hardware Library
Insert into CAD Model
Ponder Bolt
Relocate Bolt
Ponder Bolt Again….
Forward CAD File to FEA Engr (also union)
FEA 'Will Not Work'
Reselect hardware…
Repeat Cycle….until timeline requires OT
History shows the Design 'Gates' used there are not 'Quality of Design' but 'Fixed Timeline Events'…
Ever heard the phrase "PASS WITH EXCEPTION" ?…..
Hilarious….