Free PCs Not AfFordable

Why not just make it profitable? by Mustang+Matt · 2001-10-20 08:43 · Score: 2

Why not charge for the PCs and more for internet access to cover their costs and still be a good deal for the employees?

I know people that have it and love it. I'm sure they'd be willing to pay more for it.

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The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin

Reading more into this by Brento · 2001-10-20 08:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

You can read even more into this than Ford is saying. Not only is Ford making a statement that they can't afford to give PC's to their employees, they're also implying a couple of other things.

First, giving your staff free PC's isn't enough of a benefit to impress most of your staff. Let's face it, if you're working for a union-driven company like Ford, you're not living on Ramen Noodles, and you can probably afford any one of the dozens of el cheapo PC's being served up for the masses. Most of us would rather be given a credit at Best Buy to purchase the PC we really want, or maybe even peripherals if we already own a PC.

Second, in this economy, employee perks are the last thing from anybody's mind. Ford started this when employees were hard to find. Fast forward to today: due to massive layoffs everywhere, people are much easier to come by, and you don't have to go flashing perks in order to get people on board. Giving stuff away to your staff is an increasingly hard sell to the shareholders.

Third, the shareholders just got informed that they're getting decreased dividends for the first time that I can remember. Ford's always been a dividend-heavy company, and I'm sure it's hard for them to rationalize giving away PCs to their staff when their investors are getting less returns. Giveaways are associated with a dotcom, and typically the giveaways are cut just before the jobs are cut. Look out...

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What's your damage, Heather?

Re:Reading more into this by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-20 09:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

"First, giving your staff free PC's isn't enough of a benefit to impress most of your staff. Let's face it, if you're working for a union-driven company like"

I'm not sure what your point is, but I can assure you that the rank-and-file of the union are going to be more than happy to get something like this. I'm just not sure as to how it helps Ford.

You could throw them a donut and there would be a committee call over who should get it ;>

"Ford started this when employees were hard to find."

You're kidding, right? We typically have hundreds of *extremely* hopeful canidates lining up the day before one of our cattle calls (it's not uncommon for them to sleep over in line).

And this is for 5 to 10 jobs.

"Third, the shareholders just got informed that they're getting decreased dividends for the first time that I can remember"

Now this I would agree with.

BTW, we got a sweetheart deal with AOL ($3 a month for the basic service, $5 for cable. Essentually we just pay the tax on the service). Not that I could/would use it since this be a Linux box.

But I think that GM's plan for this is to provide (force?) business services at home to its employees. We will be able to access most if not all of the in plant services from home.

No thanks...
Re:Reading more into this by budgenator · 2001-10-21 00:38 · Score: 2

I think that cost had a lot to do with it, but not the costs of hardware, the costs of admin. After hearing the horror stories about how one sales weenie brought NIMDA into a corp network, causing $60K of damage, do you realy think they want an entire plants worth of'em sending babe-of-the-day Emails to each other through the company network?

Who gets sued when some UAW member's kid wants to play Hard^corE^Haxor, an assemby line worker or Ford Motor Companies deep pockets that originaly bought the machine?

And about the lay-off's, my wife work for a Ford Sub, and she gets laid-off regularly. Files for unemp for 3 days to a week then they work tens for a week to get caught back up! Effectively she's laid-off for a week but only misses 4 hours pay, actualy it pretty sweet. Don't know how they count this stuff statisticaly, does this count as a New Un-Employment Claim for the month, once it happened twice in one month.

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Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds

Re:no subject by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-20 09:02 · Score: 3, Informative

Spoken like someone who has never set foot in an auto plant.

I work for Saturn as a Controls Engineer, and you can forget about getting rid of (many) more folks through automation. The low hanging fruit has been plucked, that being the welding robots, and in our case, some of the powertrain operations.

The simple truth is that humans are still required to do most of assembly (urethaning the glass & roof not included), and to get the fit and finish of a car looking good. It will be some time before these operations are relegated to robots.

And why bother? Since if breaking the union is what you want to do, then the way to do that is to set your plant up as a "X" plant. That is where your plant does nothing but assembly (as opposed to doing the stamping, welding, painting, etc). The way this works is that you bring in the guys who make the radios, and have them install them on the line instead of a UAW worker. This not only cuts your overhead, so it's cheaper (it's pretty much certain that these guys aren't going to get UAW scale -- and never mind the benifits), but you also lessen the impact of the union.

It's already happening in South America, Ford does it, I think that we do it too (that being GM). Volkwagen planned on doing it too (in fact they stole the plans from us, and lost in court over it)

Fordism over the Internet ? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2001-10-20 09:04 · Score: 2

"the Internet will be the equivalent of the moving assembly line of the 21st Century."

Reactions to that statement from computer-savvy Ford employees are probably ranging from "I'm glad they stopped the giveway program" to "what are they smoking ?".

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"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

Re:no subject by znu · 2001-10-20 09:05 · Score: 2

This argument has been made over and over, and it doesn't make any more sense now than it did 150 years ago. Yes, new technologies can take jobs from people. This is a problem, but it's a short-term problem. Long-term, people find new jobs, and increased manufacturing efficiency raises standards of living for everyone.

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Re:no subject by Soko · 2001-10-20 09:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

A plain, un-informed anti-union rant gets +1 Informative? I see this as a troll. Though I may be feeding said troll, I couldn't let this slip by.

Sure, the reason Ford et. al. have all the automation they do is because of the high cost of labour. You think they'd buy a $3M robot to do a job if they could pay a person $5/Hr to do it? It wouldn't make sense, since the robot would likely cost $5M (price+maintenance) over it's useful lifetime of 5 years, and even paying the average person $5/Hr would cost Ford $350K for 35 years. So they would get 10 people for 7 times as long and still pay less money in the end. Oh, why $3M? Because there isn't a computer anywhere that can make decisions better than a human brain of any stature. Computers can crunch data easily, as long as the data is fairly constatnt - humand excell at dealing with dynamic data. It would take a major beowulf cluster to deal with all of the dynamics on an assembly line the way a single human being could deal with them.

Now, since people cost more than machines to use for a lot of the repeditive/boring/dangerous jobs, Ford uses machines for those jobs instead. It's a business - they use it if it contributes to the bottom line. Even the reason for most businesses keeping employees happy is not because of altruism, it's because happy workers are productive workers. Productive workers are cost-effective workers, and cost-effective = more profits.

As far as the price of vehicles go, it's not just Joe Sixpack turning bolts that's getting paid big $, you know - Ford does have a huge salaried contingent as well. All of thier employees contribute to overhead, not just the Unionised staff. I'd make a wild guess that if Union jobs were worth $5/hr, you'd only see the price of a car drop maybe $700.

IOW, it's not as simple as you make it sound, bub. Any economist (as long as they're not a big C conservative) will tell you the same thing - higher wages in one area lead to more jobs in other areas since the people getting more tend to spend more.

Unions have thier place even today (though I do wish they'd try to modernise some of thier attitude just a bit).

Soko

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"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous

Re:Rolling Over by Brento · 2001-10-20 09:18 · Score: 5, Funny

Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave...

Evidently he was buried in an Explorer.

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What's your damage, Heather?

It was an idea ahead of its time. by Anton+Anatopopov · 2001-10-20 09:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

While it is a good thing to have a computer-literate workforce, simply subsidising the cost of a PC was not the best way for Ford to proceed.

What would have been more sensible would have been to provide computer training (like say RedHat certification or something like that), which would actually help the employee progress in their career.

Simply giving them a PC was not a structured approach. My guess is that a lot of these PCs ended up being used for the kids to do their homework on, or more likely to play games.

Ford is right to think of innovative ways to increase computer literacy, but it looks like they didn't put enough thought into the 'Model E' project.

Unions don't make cars expensive by ergo98 · 2001-10-20 09:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think the proof is the simple fact that cars made in places such as Mexico, where the labour force is paid an iota of the price of the United States/Canadian auto labour force, cost just as much. VW, Chrysler, Ford : They've all opened plants there (many companies have opened plants based upon "low wages" and quickly pulled out after discovering that wages are only one small part of running a factory) and strangely I still see the price of cars rising and rising, yet at the same time the natural unemployment rate increases as an entire sector of workers is displaced. The idea that unions increase the cost of cars substantially is not based in any reality whatsoever.

support by jonbrewer · 2001-10-20 10:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

"Unionized GM assemblers make $21.02 per hour, Ford assemblers $21.03 and DaimlerChrysler assemblers $21.01."

This from: http://www.auto.com/industry/qgm17.htm

I don't see the point in giving away PCs to people with these salaries. Especially considering the percentage of these people in two income households. (Check the census)

Now if Ford really wanted to do some good for the world, they'd give computers to their foreign workers and leave the Americans to buy their own.

Good points, but $5/Hr? by ackthpt · 2001-10-20 11:32 · Score: 2

That's a pretty presposterous wage even McD's employees would stand (or sit) for. Assume the average Ford skilled labor employee takes home ~$40,000 a year, add to that the cost of all fringes (vacation, sick leave, heath, dental, profit sharing, unemployment, employer's share of FICA, etc.) and the cost per employee will be ~$60,000

Key thing left out here, in much of the anti-union flavor of many posts is that the Ford workers were getting some hefty profit sharing bonuses in prior years, which they will probably not see again for a while, these were in the $2,500-5,000 range.

FWIW, if you actually have a fulltime job, go see your HR people and get a disclosure statement on the cost of actually having you there. It's often 1.5 times your salary, workplace expenses not withstanding.

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:no subject by nels_tomlinson · 2001-10-20 12:26 · Score: 2

Any economist (as long as they're not a big C conservative) will tell you the same thing - higher wages in one area lead to more jobs in other areas since the people getting more tend to spend more.

WRONG! No economist would say anything so simple and definite.

What I might say is that artificially inflated wages in one area (inflated, say, by a union) will impoverish everyone, though the nonunion workers would certainly be hurt far wose than the union workers with the artificially high wages . Higher wages due to higher productivity (raised, say, by the employer's capital expenditure) will have the effect you describe.

I took a union shop leader's training course once, and was shocked by the ``screw your employer'' attitude. It soured me on unions in a big way. This was the American Federation of Teachers, by the way, hardly a notorious bunch of militants.

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See what I've been reading.

Re:Rolling Over by A_Non_Moose · 2001-10-20 12:50 · Score: 2

Now, Now,

Let he who is without sin cast the first Firestone.

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Re:no subject by znu · 2001-10-20 13:01 · Score: 2

I'm aware of the problems. They don't justify holding back progress. If everyone used your logic, the entire Industrial Revolution never would have happened. Surely you won't deny that average standards of living have improved quite a lot as a result of that.

And it's certainly not good for the economy (again, long-term) to have huge numbers of people doing what is, essentially, busy-work. Humans are the single most valuable resource a society has, and are far more versatile than any machine yet developed. Human effort shouldn't be waisted on menial tasks. If there are people with no other skills, teach them other skills. Don't make them waste their lives doing things machines could to better, faster and cheaper!

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We need our people being productive by alexhmit01 · 2001-10-20 13:29 · Score: 2

Look, transistions suck. There is no question. Different industries get axed in different ways. We certainly need to be on the ball better to protect people during transitions. If someone loses a job because of incompetant, etc., then there is no problem with them being in trouble. However, those that lose their jobs because of structural changes in the economy probably should have a better safety net.

However, you understate the problem with busy work.

The United States has the world's largest economy. There are fewer than 300m of us, even with undocumented aliens, etc. We have a young (relative to our history considering life expectancy) retirement age, and a long childhood (mandatory schooling until 16, free schooling until 18, with over half the country going on to further education, 20 or 22), which leaves us with a small work force to push the economy.

During economic crisis, or feared crisis, we shrink the work force (great depression => social security, fear of post-war recession => GI Bill, other pushes for higher education).

During this last boom, wages were spiraling out of control for certain worker groups, which prevented companies from hiring, which likely cut off the boom earlier. Realize that we were PAST full employment... unemployment was lower than economists THOUGHT was possible with normal job switching.

If we can't rotate people into other sectors, our economy is going to peter out.

We need a system to HELP transition people. People replaced by technology need a system for:
A) training
B) maintaining their lifestyle during the transition

I normally don't like government programs, but I can see good reasons for federalizing this. If the company has to pay for the transitioning, the equation gets pushed AWAY from automation because of the added costs of paying former employees. If the employees pay for it, you screw people over. Spreading the costs across all Americans (taxes) prevents structual economic changes from falling upon the individuals hit or the regions that they are locating.

The other problem is what to do with older employees. Someone who is 45 or 50, that has held a job since they were 15-20, is in a difficult position to change functions. Perhaps we need a more useful early retirement system.

Ideally, we don't WANT companies or people to fear changes or avoid changes. We want to embrace changes.

It would be nice to live in a world where people (workers, entreprenuers always take risks) focus on doing their job and living their life. If there are changes, they figure out a way to adapt afterwards, instead of worrying or fearing change.

Just a thought, it might ADD efficiency to our economy...

Alex

Re:no subject by Dead_Smiley · 2001-10-20 15:38 · Score: 2, Informative

I think you don't work in this industry.

You can buy a nice Staublii or Motoman robot for around $80,000.

Of course by the time you generate controls drawings, mechanical drawings (for end effectors and fixturing) and develope the application you are problably talking closer to $120-$150k for one robot.

"It would take a major beowulf cluster to deal with all of the dynamics on an assembly line the way a single human being could deal with them."

We very seldom use what most here would concider a computer for machine control. Besides that, I have working on a project where we had to handle 33 variations of the same part on one piece of assembly and test equipment. The entire project was less than $2 million. The cycle time for a completed part was 10 seconds.

An Allen-Bradley SLC 5/04 processor with 16k (yes, that is k) is typical of what we use for machine control. I know this seems a small amount of RAM, but when you are primarily dealing with bits not much is required.

"Oh, why $3M? Because there isn't a computer anywhere that can make decisions better than a human brain of any stature."

I have to disagree with you here. In some cases, the computer can make the dicisions much more quickly and reliably than any human on earth. One example I have personal experience with is machine vision systems. I did a project that involved inspecting disk pack assemblies that were assembled by hand and then orbital formed them in place. The operator would swear that he assembled them correctly when our machine rejected an assembly. Upon inspection, it was proven every time that the operator had in fact assembled them incorrectly. During final exceptance we even rejected an assembly because an eyelash was in the disk assembly. Our customers were very impressed and it also made a strong case for doing this assembly in a clean room.

"even paying the average person $5/Hr would cost Ford $350K for 35 years."

Actually that is $364k in 35 years, but you left out things like benefits, social security taxes, and unemployment insurance that the company has to pay on top of the emplyee's wages.

OK, I could go on for quite a while but I am done for now...

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I know what the Internet is, what the hell is this Interweb business?!

Ford Employee by SubtleNuance · 2001-10-21 06:45 · Score: 2

I work for Ford Motor.

Please see here: http://www.thestreet.com/tech/siliconvalley/102490 9.html

This isnt the 'best' description of the situation, but BASICALLY the Ford PeoplePC deal has been a scam from day one.

Ford announced this program internally as an effort to jumpstart the rank-and-file computer knowledge in order to enable the company in the new 'ecommerce' universe (robost-corporate-speak-bullshit). They invested MANY MANY millions into PeoplePC PRIOR to their IPO. PeoplePC, as some of you may rememeber, was basing its business on "we give you PC now for a 36mos. ISP contract" ala Iopener and some others... when the big Dot Bust occured, all these companies started to fail. Ford, having its NUTS in the vice for about $25 Million dollars, Ford volunteered to ENROLL every Ford employee in the PeoplePC program... the cost to Ford directly? Im not sure, maybe something, maybe nothing - frankly I have no reason to believe that it cost Ford ANYTHING to do this, I believe it was an effort to further finance PeoplePC, give them customers (keeping them working/solvent) and give the impression that PeoplePC is a viable business.. remember Ford was in bed w/ PeoplePC pre-IPO... and they had a contract deal to be able to buy another $25M at IPO stock price.

So, basically, when PeoplePC the market ran away from all the DotComs and other fantasy-technology companies, PeoplePC became a worthless company.. they trade at like $0.18 per share.

Ford knows the company is doomed. They are not going to 'throw good money after bad'... they are going to let PeoplePC die.

THIS IS WHY THEY CANCELLED THE PROGRAM

Let me tell you very frankly - there are alot of people at Ford Motor Canada that are VERY VERY ANGRY about this. It could be a very heavy point in the next CAW contract (sept'02)... and the Salary Staff (which I am one of) are VERY aware of what is really taking place... the worst thing in the world is to be this close, this aware to something like this announcment and realize that the company you are working for is a decietfull(sp?) pack of liars.

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