So Harley announces that its net income tripled from last year.
That's good news.
I'm wondering, then, if the company plans to call back any of its laid-off workers or make up some of he concessions its union workers gave back to keep their jobs.
Jeez. Who am I kidding?
Well, this is the problem with the kind of reporting that we get nowadays, we get incomplete and (probably deliberately) misleading information. The mere fact that Harley's profit tripled doesn't tell us much when it is provided without context, which is what the media all too often does.
Suppose that Harley's historical profit is 12% but during the recession it has been disasterously running at 1-2% profit. Now things are better and Harley is "booming along" at, say, 6% profit. One could indeed say that Harley's "profits have tripled," or one could say that Harley is "still struggling at half of the profit it had in good times."
In the oil crisis the media kept harping on the oil companies "obscene $2 billion profit" and there were calls for windfall profit taxes and other punishments to the oil companies. What was not reported was the sales volume, or that the "obscene $2 billion" represented a very modest 6% profit margin. The oil companies were not the problem at all, the high profits were going to nations like Saudi Arabia and to oil speculators in the trading market.
I agree, Mr. Heffner. This is exactly what the media in "Atlas Shrugged" did.
"Atlas Shrugged" is a very good book; I started it last month and finished in two weeks. It's very good; you should read it, Mr. Argento.
I was a former employee at Harley I was laid off over a year ago and my boyfriend just got laid off this past june and I want to leave a comment for you. If Harley hires these casual workers and temp people to fill in for vacations and things and not to replace the employees that were laid off then why when a union employee wants off for vacation or anything they can't have off unless they put in for it well in advance and then there still not quranteed to get that day off and the casuals and temp help is there 40hrs a week just like the union employees are doing and there doing the same jobs that the ones that are laid off were doing and they get mandated for overtime like the regular employees do, Doesn't it seem kinda funny how harley can work the system they get these casuals to come in and do the same job as the laid off ones do but they make out cause they get paid less wages and no benefits so that only saves harley money and the laid off ones get screwed out of a job.