Maytag CEO Says U.S. Workers Must Cut Costs

NEWTON, Iowa (AP) - Maytag Corp. chairman and CEO Ralph Hake told shareholders Thursday that expenses at the company's U.S. plants must come down for the home appliance maker to remain competitive with cheaper imports.
The company is in the process of closing a 1,600-employee plant in Galesburg, Ill., and moving production to Mexico. But Hake told shareholders attending the annual meeting there are no plans to shift more U.S. jobs there - although the company does have space at the Mexcio facility to accommodate future growth.

He said Maytag is struggling to compete against cheaper, imported appliances. With labor overseas so much cheaper, he said, having 96 percent of Maytag's work force still based in the United States is "not an advantage for Maytag."

He also said that consumers are more concerned about price than where their appliances are made.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAHMTPF7UD.html

shareholders? That's gotta be worth a few bucks.

Their salaries and perks have gone up astronomically, while working wages have remained flat or declined.

If I were more radical and violent, I would say it's almost time to oil up some guillotines.

"Let them eat cake." Indeed.

With the Berg video, we won't even to use them, just put them up in convenient corporate areas.

more pay cuts? These clowns are making so much $$$ they are completely ignorant as to how most people live.

Attention CEOs making 600% and better what the average worker gets:
Paychecks are it for most Americans. There is no cushion in the bank or market. There are no real estate holdings save the ones they are trying to keep over their heads. There are no trust funds. Get a fucking clue... keep expecting workers to do more for less and who is gonna buy anything?

when the jobs go to Mexico? If the CEO forfeited ALL his salary, that is $21 for each of the 40,000....a year.

I have an idea, pitch the union and let the workers keep the union dues.

Maytag has been giving Americans a quality product and a decent living since the early 1900's. The reality of the times is that there is overseas competition. If we can't compete we lose the jobs. Then, pray tell, who of the 40,000 will buy anything?

Instead of just complaining, come up with a better idea. The CEO of Maytag sounds like he genuinely wants to keep these jobs here. Now it is a simple business math problem.

How do union dues affect any of this?

But we need Unions. I guess he doesn't think so. I wonder why one would be a Democrat and not see the value of Unions.

We would still live in tar paper shacks if it weren't for Unions !!!

:D

Cost-benefit analyses are not sufficient by themselves when making ethical decisions. It's that kind of simplistic accounting that has caused so many huge problems in business.

What does the union have to do with it?

And the CEO's will "do the right thing" out of the "Inate Goodness present in all Men",right?

I don't fucking think so.

Betsy DeVos (Wife of the Billionaire co-founder of Amway and no poor person in her own right) says Michigan is losing out on jobs because Michigan workers Wages are too high. I recently heard the same bullshit line expounded by someone here in Indiana, so this tells me that this is the new wave of business. "To compete in the Global Market, America must take the Lead in reducing production costs, and that means wages must go down..."

Never mind the SUV's, Bass Boats, Harleys, motorhome campers, big-screen "Home Theaters", and all those other emblems of "The Murkan Dream". How many of us will be able to even keep a fucking ROOF over our heads, much less send our kids to college, on $6 an hour?

Yeah, by all means, get rid of the Unions, then what you gonna do when Capital says "$6 an hour, take it or go FUCK yourself" and the Government says "Hey, it's more than the Minimum Wage, what you bitching about?"

No holidays
No sick leave
No annual leave
No Child safety standards
No overtime
no nothing

it will ALL be gone! And for those of us who haven't starved to death or been imprisoned for some reason, our employers will have "Physchological Departments" like Henry Ford did to ensure that we're not squandering our Dollar-a-Day, or shacking up with people without marriage, or anything else the new US Department of Morality decrees....

What needs to be done is tarrifs applied until similar standards are in place in the countries supplying cheap labor with no care for people or the world. We need to enforce all environmental policies world-wide or quit buying from any nation that refuses to establish environmental and labor policies that are fair and earnest. Eliminate child labor abuse and allow the standard of living to improve through-out the world and things will level out. right now it is rape and pillage by American corporations and it is because of such policies that people through-out the world hate Americans. We need to treat all people fairly.

Screw the public good. They will be far richer than any mexican millionaire-- the aim is to have 2 classes, the lower class policed in a fascist state by millions of police and prison guards.

American wages have ALWAYS been higher than Mexican, Chinese, and other third world countries. How the hell did Maytag manage to make a profit for the last 100 years?

Don't let the free traitors fool you. Free trade isn't good for all Americans. It's only good for the wealthy.

They had no overseas competition. Until the early to mid 70's Asian, especially Japanese, goods were seen as cheap and inferior. Americans wouldn't buy them. If you recall, advertisements like "quality goes in before the name goes on" were how many items were sold.


Times have changed.

Maytag could've moved their plant to Mexico in 1902. But they didn't. Why? Because they had to pay tariffs on importing the goods back into the US, which negated the gain on cheap labor. That's the way it was up until NAFTA and the free traitors. That's the way the Founding Fathers intended it when they set up tariffs as part of the Constitution to protect domestic industry.

But the hell with the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. WTF did they know anyway?

He only got a $40,000 raise this year to $841,000. I never made $40,000 in any of my 50 years of working.

http://www.ammagazine.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/news/news_item/0,2610,122266,00.html

stock options, of course and if the price goes down below the "strike" price they were issued at, then the company usually reprices them for the CEO.

They get bonuses.

They get "loans" that get "forgiven".

They get special retirement plans that are protected no matter what, even if the company goes bankrupt.

They get lots of "expenses" taken care of, and life insurance, and gold-plated health insurance, and the company jet, etc.

still pretty cynical.

Maytag CEO Got No Bonus in 2003 (4/1)

(Reprinted from Reuters)

Appliance maker Maytag Corp. (MYG), whose earnings fell last year as consumers migrated from its Hoover vacuums to cheaper models, paid no bonus to its top executive in 2003, it disclosed in a federal filing on Wednesday.

The maker of Hoover vacuum cleaners and Jenn-Air and Maytag appliances said in its proxy that Chairman and Chief Executive Ralph Hake earned a salary of $841,667, up from $800,000 in 2002.

Based on Maytag's performance against financial goals approved by the board at the beginning of 2003, Hake "was not awarded any annual "variable incentive compensation," the company said in the filing.

http://www.ammagazine.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/news/news_item/0,2610,122266,00.html

"variable incentive compensation"? If they have to give it a clumsy euphemism, my BS meter starts reacting.

... yet their CEO is pulling down half of what my "CO-CEOs" are pulling, each(1.6m a pop plus options).

... "variable incentive compensation" is that they only seem to work in the up direction. When a company's profits increase, it is assumed to be the results of the diligence and hard work of the CEO, so they deserve a raise.

When profits decrease, it is assumed to be market conditions and the CEO's compensation increases at a smaller rate.

There is no question that foreign labor is going to have a major impact on wages in this country. I'd be slightly less pissed if management would take their share of the hit.

But theirs will be delayed until the day when Americans can no longer afford their products, and when foreign companies create their own brands and undercut their jobs also. And yes, this is what will eventually happen. American run companies make themselves vulnerable by paying their officers way too much. Manufacturing labor is probably 20% of what American labor costs. Management overseas will probably cost 1% of what American management costs.

What goes around comes around.

are so screwed.."


i hear ya dude,
dp

they suck! Timers in both went out within five months.

And NOT from Switzerland, either, I'd bet.

Telechron timers from the USA for $9 ea. or timers from the "Yu Suk Timer and Steam Locomotive Factory" in Fuk Yu China for 79 cents...What to Do....

It's always the worker's fault for wanting fair wages for their labor.

Cheap foreign goods..that's the benefit to US consumers according to proponents of outsourcing. I was thinking about prices vs. incomes 40 years ago when I was a kid, when we still had manufacturing here and when a single blue collar income supported a whole family. One thing was the same as it is now and that's that some things cost a lot and some were relatively cheap. They were just different things. Overall, the consumer probably did better on the important things, like housing, and not as well on the less vital items. However, I recall canvas sneakers, which were our only fashion choice, costing about $2, which wasn't a lot even then. The big savings that I see in my life as a consumer is that the cost of decorative paper towel holders and picture frames has come way down. I don't think that's worth savaging an economic way of life for. People can save a lot of money buying assemble-it-yourself, pre-finished, woodlike furniture. That really didn't exist in its present form then so you can't do a head-to head comparison there. Electronics always did go down as a technology matured. Yes, color TVs were more expensive in 1964, but they were a new thing as was stereo technology. The prices came down more gradually than they do now, but then technology didn't become old and obsolete nearly as fast. I started being in the market for things like washers and dryers just a few years later and didn't find them any more painful a purchase then than now. I don't see that the proliferation of cheap goods has resulted in much that we actually need being more accessible. I think that we have to look beyond labor costs for the reasons that we can't seem to produce goods here at a profit margin that suits the CEOs and investors.

Wwe are ur own worst enemy. The cost of housing in parts of this country are ridiculous. Where our parents could afford a decent house on a single income. Today we accept that two incomes are required.

What washer/dryer/refrigerator does he own? I bet it has a much longer lifetime than the ones he will soon be peddling?

Get ready to outsource some more.


Did somebody mention guillotines?

I hear it's getting too expensive to manufacture in India. They are outsourcing to Vietnam.

"He also said that consumers are more concerned about price than where their appliances are made."

Anyone with a concern for the economy of this country knows this is bullshit. There needs to be an organized effort in this country to track and publish a list of products that have moved offshore. I'm reminded of the "buy American" movement in the late 60's/early 70's. The situation today is far more serious in terms of the danger to our way of life.

Short-sighted comments claiming a concern for cost underestimate the ability of Americans to understand that when the last decent-wage job leaves our shores they might as well turn out the lights. This nation will disintegrate into anarchy when the middle class becomes an extinct species.

Furthermore, the claim of the supply-side apologists that we need to fund job-training programs is complete nonsense. There are no jobs left to train for. The technically-trained unemployed in this country is staggering. What kind of training are these assholes calling for? Possibly more funding for Burger U? After all, manufacturing jobs in the fast food industry are the savior of the Bush jobs program.

this crap will stop when people start using their dollars as weapons. it's one of the few things we still control -- how we spend our money.

sure, televisions made in china are pretty good and breaktakingly cheap. but if i buy one, then i'm providing positive reinforcement for those who are taking jobs and money out of america.

screw maytag and the whole bunch of them.

When people in the United States can't afford any kind of washing machine.

At the moment we are bleeding bad. As any emergency medical professional will tell you, "eventually all bleeding stops."

The leaders in the United States, not just our politicians but our business leaders too, have to decide how they want that bleeding to stop.

Will the American "middle class" survive this bleeding or not? At this time things are looking pretty grim.

Maytag washer,dryer,microwave,range,dishwasher and
garbage disposal who gives a damn where and by whom
they were made. Keep it up and not only will you have
no domestic production but you will have no domestic
workers with the means to purchase your products.
Why is this not apparent to these executive leeches?

:eyes: