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Dell Closes Ireland Plant; 2nd Largest Employer
Wide Angle writes in with a PBS report on tough economic news from Ireland: Dell announced that it will relocate its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. "Dell's announcement... is a severe blow to the Irish economy, which has been hit hard and fast by the global economic crisis. Dell is Ireland's second-largest corporate employer and the country's largest exporter. Nineteen hundred shift workers will lose their jobs. ...Dell's closing is not a result of the economic downturn, but of a pattern all too familiar in the United States — corporations' perennial search for cheaper labor. Since 2000 several companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Intel, Gateway, and NEC Electronics, have moved manufacturing jobs from Ireland to China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. When Poland joined the European Union in 2004, it became an attractive place for companies to set up manufacturing plants. ... However, Ireland has managed to maintain and attract... 'knowledge-intensive jobs.' Google's European headquarters are based in Dublin, and Facebook announced late last year that they would locate their international headquarters there. But the overall economic picture for Ireland is bleak."
Perhaps Eire should have factored in that companies agile and willing enough to relocate once to Ireland would likely be sufficiently agile and willing to move to follow the sun again.
Nullius in verba
That's fine as long as you have a job to pay for it. If all the manufacturing and knowledge based jobs end up in the cheaper locations then can the Western Economies keep going. I know that many economists say that it is the beginning of the service economy, and we can all be rich in the west by buying and providing services for each other but I am rather skeptical. If a whole country consists of PR teams, lawyers, restaurant owners and so on can they really "generate" enough money to be able to buy their "real" things from cheap overseas sources?
I realize that this sucks for Ireland but Poland is in far worse shape and needs the jobs just as badly if not more.
The population of Ireland is somewhere around 6 million - what does every *else* do there?
Farm potatoes and brew Guinness.
The fact is, since China has the unfair advantage of near-slave labor, the rest of the world as a whole needs to have stiff import tariffs to equalize this imbalance.
This really shouldn't be completely about the "world economy" and if it can be done cheaper in China, "why not"? It is completely fair to take into account other factors such as China's complete disregard for workers rights and environmental issues, not to mention truth in labeling with regards to all the poisons they put in food products.
Make 'em pay, it's the only way to get their attention.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Having spent over an hour and a half on the phone with Dell Canada on Monday just to get a quote (and a quote for twenty computers I might add), I'd say there is such a thing as "too cheap".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We the consumer, demand cheaper priced products, why should we be surprised when manufacturers look for methods of reducing their costs? You don't exactly see them firing up manufacturing plants in Tokyo or Manhattan.
Corporations also demand more profit. Reducing costs helps that bottom line. Whether moving manufactoring locations ends up positive on that bottom line or not isn't always clear at the outset.
It's a Global Economy, get used to it.
It's been a global economy for decades. That's not the change.
The 10 year discount is up. That's why they are moving, and Dell isn't the only corporation doing this. Ireland has a low corporate tax, and discounts it even further for the first 10 years a corporation operates there.
There. Fixed it for ya.
There once was an old man of Esser,
Whose employment prospects grew lesser and lesser,
It at last grew so small
He had no job skills at all,
And now he's a college professor.
There once was a company called Dell,
Who saw their costs starting to swell,
Labor in Lodz
Attracted their jobs,
So they told the Irish, "Go to hell".
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
While wiping his chin,
He said with a grin,
"If my ear were a cunt, I could fuck it."
--- and here is the extended version of the original ---
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
part 2:
But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
part 3:
Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nan and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
Maybe I can help.
The correct pronunciation of the word "Woodge" is something like the Polish pronunciation of "Lodz".
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Actually they're not the second-largest corporate employer. That seems to be an incorrect inference on the part of the Washington Post, because the Dell Ireland website claims they're the second-largest *corporation*.. and the metric for that could easily be something other than employees, i.e. revenue. Of course, 1900 people isn't their entire Irish workforce either.
There are _definitely_ larger employers in Ireland. 1900 people at a single factory is enough to sustain a mid sized factory town of about 30,000 people (1/3 of Limerick). I know because I've lived in one. And I'm certain Ireland has a handful of towns that size and larger.
But just to grab some random Irish companies out of a hat and look them up: Eircom has 6,500 employees. Bank of Ireland has 16,026.
Dell, as they moved away, laughed,
"To pay your wages we'd be daft."
On pink slips they wrote
A rude little note
"Dude, you're getting the shaft!"
And when the Lodzians wanted their pay,
Dell ran numbers and told them 'no way'.
They moved to Myanmar --
like all industry stars --
where the workers get eight cents a day.
But labor still cost too much wealth.
(For some workers were older than twelve!)
Dell's great business plan,
could not involve man:
They were modeled on magical elves.
So Dell finally settled in Congo.
Every PC they now make, as you know,
is constructed on skimp
by two apes and a chimp.
(And the chimp's job security is low.)
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
The town's name is "Limerick". Most common limerick? You guessed it, man from Nantucket. It wasn't all that funny, but that's the joke.
The basic problem is that "free trade" never is.
"Free trade" concerning commodities that are easily made (or grown) in an area, like tropical fruit towards northern climates, is one thing.
"Free trade" based on paying workers shit wages, or based on the fact that one country (*coughmexshitcocough*) has absolutely crappy evironmental protection laws while their neighbors don't, doesn't - it temporarily drives down "costs" while ensuring that the environment gets ruined and poverty is taken advantage of.
The solution is "fair trade" instead - place tariffs on any and all imported goods from countries whose labor protection and environmental laws are inferior to our own, such that the cost to produce them there and them import is the same (or better yet, slightly more expensive) as doing the production either here, or in a country with proper worker and environmental protection standards. If the USA/Canada/European countries would do that, then the countries with shit worker protection and environmental laws will have to fall in line and we can actually get things addressed.