SIAP: Video of 1,400 employees being told their jobs are being relocated

[BigDelHawk]

If Carrier goes to Mexico, Lennox likely will follow. How many people make a living with them in Marshalltown? Also, we have a Carrier plant just across the border in LaCrosse. If they move the lightweight stuff first, how long before they move the commercial units. That is what happened to Modine in Washington, Iowa, Losing 400 jobs in the next year or so.

Just saying......

Also, something has to be the initiator of wealth in this country. If you do not make something to sell and bring the first dollar into the country, there will be nothing created to gain velocity to create service jobs with.

 

[Ollie4ISU]

I thought that cutting taxes on the "job creators" was supposed to provide jobs and "raise all boats"? I'll bet UTC's CEO will see a nice bump for "cutting costs", etc. If the result of cutting taxes on the owners and corporations doesn't result in jobs for US workers, then the bargain made on those tax cuts has been broken. Return tax rates on top "earners", capital gains, etc to pre-Reagan days. Use resulting revenues to hire US workers to rebuild infrastructure, etc. The economy only truly works when the bulk of the population has a job and money to spend. This 35 year experiment of "Trickle Down" or "Supply Side" economics, needs to end. If there are to be tax advantages for business, then there absolutely has to be a result that includes US production and jobs.

 

[Run&Blade]

Not a fan of ceo types getting millions of dollars in stock options and doing stuff like this.

Free trade sucks or should I say mock free trade.

 

[Old_wrestling_fan]

Considering this thread is about MANUFACTURING jobs, and the MANUFACTURING PLANT for that company is in IOWA, I don't see your point.

What I DO see is a lack of foresight on the part of American government and business to be taking advantage of the green energy boom and setting up their own engineering/manufacturing here. If we commit to upgrading our grid and energy sources, MOST of the jobs related to that can be here. And once we become a technology leader, we can then outsource that tech to other countries as well, with OUR workers leading the charge.

As it stands, the Spanish company is developing the technology, NOT a US company. That's unfortunate.

FYI, the manufacturing plant in West Branch is essentially shuttered at this time. There are still office functions there, but no manufacturing. I am not aware of any Acciona manufacturing in Iowa, but there may be a plant elsewhere that I don't know about. Do you know of one?

 

[Joes Place]

FYI, the manufacturing plant in West Branch is essentially shuttered at this time. There are still office functions there, but no manufacturing. I am not aware of any Acciona manufacturing in Iowa, but there may be a plant elsewhere that I don't know about. Do you know of one?

Vestas has been on a recent hiring spree in Colorado. A Danish company that has 4 manufacturing facilities out here (as I understand it - Pueblo, Brighton and Windsor): a tower factory and a few turbine blades and nacelles factories. They employ ~4000 people out here, and export to Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay.

Here is an 'end of 2015' year article on them:
http://companyweek.com/company-prof...nt-in-pueblo-building-wind-towers-at-capacity

The wind giant launched manufacturing in Colorado in 2010. Five years later, its tower-making operation in Pueblo is going full tilt.
It was a very good year for Vestas' massive wind tower manufacturing facility in Pueblo.

The plant is operating at 100 percent production capacity, making roughly 1,100 wind turbine towers annually to support Vestas' wind projects in North America.

"We're qualified to build 48 different tower styles," explains Tony Knopp, vice president of Vestas Towers Americas in Pueblo. "Our designers build to the needs of the customers. It's really based on tweaking it to be perfect for the tower site."


In 2015, Vestas has brought more than 200,000 tons of steel into its 13-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Pueblo from North Carolina, Iowa and South Korea. Crews take the raw steel slabs and roll, bevel, shape, weld, and sculpt them into into 65-ton, 100-foot sections. These are later assembled into towers that often top out at about 300 feet tall.​

Pieces are painted and finished in other buildings on the campus. That includes the installation of ladders, lifts for tall masts, and other components. On a given day, nearly 600 made-to-order sections dot the 300-acre landscape.

If it sounds behemoth, it is. Vestas is the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, larger than competitors like Siemens and GE. The Danish company has grown quickly and it began looking to establish manufacturing in the U.S. in 2005 to meet demand in North America.

Vestas didn't decide on Pueblo for the tower manufacturing plant until September 2008 and Knopp came on the next year after stints at Schlage and GM. "I've been here long enough to hire the staff and start the factory," he asserts. It opened the doors in 2010.

The company also located its North American turbine blade manufacturing in Brighton and Windsor and its nacelle manufacturing -- the guts of a wind turbine including the gearing, generator, and other equipment -- in Brighton.

The company chose Colorado and Pueblo for a number of reasons. Among them its five generations of steel workers and Pueblo Community College. "Pueblo Community College has been an effective partner from the beginning," Knopp says. "It helped train the initial Vestas workforce and provided training programs until the company could offer its own." Colorado also provided a business-friendly environment for the company, he adds.

There was another important factor in choosing Colorado: location. "Transportation costs are so expensive for the nacelles, the blades, and the towers so we wanted to get in the region where the wind resource was greatest," Knopp explains. That region, he says, stretches from Texas to North Dakota.

Vestas now has roughly 4,000 employees in Colorado and 800 in Pueblo, including 300 welders. The company also supports many downstream manufacturing jobs locally as it sources equipment from numerous in-state companies. "Here in Colorado, we're doing work with a company called Aluwind out of Castle Rock," Knopp says. "We're buying components from them." A Denver company, Walker Component Group, builds the electrical kits, including the lighting and wiring for the towers. Vestas is also purchasing from Pueblo's O'Neal Manufacturing.

Vestas has been catalytic for Pueblo's manufacturing economy, says Jeffrey Shaw, vice president of Pueblo Economic Development Corp. "They've been a great addition to Pueblo. Not only are they here, they’re excelling even more strongly than we thought."

"For each strong manufacturing job, there are two or three other jobs created," Shaw claims. "I think it's strengthened everyone and all manufacturers here. It's been a great citizen manufacturer. They’ve shared their expertise. Certainly it's improved our workforce."

More at the link

 

[Capital1Hawk]

Hire trump now.

 

[Hawkeye_311]

Pretty soon the 11 million Mexicans that broke the law to get to the U.S. will be jumping the fence and heading south for good paying jobs.

 

[Joes Place]

Hire trump now.

Not so sure I want a 'business' guy who is so quick to go into bankruptcy (4 times) to correct his poor business gambits.
A US President who would default on the US debt to 'reorganize' would create a nightmare scenario for the world economy...

 

[Monzon]

Our company is a supplier to UTC so we are now looking at losing a top 20 client as well.

That's just the trickle down effect of losing business of this size to another country.

One of our largest suppliers also supplies Carrier, with us as #1 customer to them and Carrier being #2. Lots of companies in Indiana have folded with the automotive industry downturn, this is just another blow.