Results tagged “Harley-Davidson” from York Common Cents

Looks like the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee might be working to attract younger riders. Children get in free every Sunday in July and August.

Check it out here.

Harley-Davidson is reportedly cutting about 35 positions from a product development facility in Wisconsin. Check it out here.

The jobs are union positions, either with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents the bulk of employees locally, or the United Steelworkers.

Check out the editorial today from the York Daily Record about Harley here.

At 6:30 a.m. today, I was stationed at the entrance of the Harley-Davidson plant in Springettsbury Township.

My goal was to catch workers as they left the plant and ask them what they thought of the company's second-quarter earnings.

I had time to be turned down by one worker before plant security requested that I leave the property.

Undeterred, I visited a host of local businesses in search of the elusive Harley worker.

I even spotted two workers at a gas station on the corner of North Sherman Street and Route 30. Unfortunately, they let the roar of their motorcycle engines voice their opinion.

However, at Denny's in York, I finally had some luck, sort of.

I ran into Jim Booth, a Connecticut resident who rode in town on the back of a Honda VTX 1300 to take a tour of the local Harley-Davidson plant.

Two weeks ago, Booth opted to buy the Honda rather than a Harley. Price, not quality, was the deciding factor.

Booth said people often point to the bike and mistake the Honda for a Harley.

"I tell them it's the Japanese Harley," he said

Awhile ago I said I was watching a boat for sale along my route to work in West Manchester Township, simply to gauge whether the economy is making a turn for the better.

I saw two lookers so far, and a third appeared this morning, and got close enough to read the contact information. Maybe that boat will be purchased soon.

The Harley-Davidson dealer in New York state that caught the attention of the company recently with some religiously charged words about President Barack Obama has changed the sign that carried those words.

According to a representative from Iron Block Harley-Davidson, the company requested the sign be changed to say nothing about the president or religion.

Read the full story here.

A Harley-Davidson dealer in New York state has drawn the ire of some in the community for a billboard about President Barack Obama, Muslims and Christians.

From there, what the billboard does and did say are at the center of a dispute that even the company has weighed in on.

Check out the link here.

I came across this blog from Oregon this morning, expounding why Harley should come there. I couldn't decide if it was tongue-in-cheek or serious. Either way, the possible relocation is on the radar screens of people across the country.

Still no news as the situation develops. Workers I have talked to say they don't expect to hear any real news until fall, when Harley has already told workers and the public they expect to complete their studies of options.

The options pieced together so far have roughly boiled down to staying, and making changes with a factory operation Harley has said isn't cost-effective, or going somewhere where they can make a new, cost-effective operation.

It's hard to think of all the questions 2,500 people worried for their jobs might have after getting the news Harley employees did last Monday.

The company told workers it is studying all options to get its costs under control -- including possibly moving production out of York County.

So we asked a few workers what they would ask the company if they could, and then we asked the company. Below are the questions, and a cumulative response from Harley corporate communications.

QUESTIONS
If (Harley-Davidson) would move out of the area, would I as an employee get the chance to move with the company? Also, what would we have to do to get Harley to stay in York County?
--Kevin Viands, 21-year employee

Considering the skilled workers locally, why would Harley think it can move somewhere else and make the same quality motorcycle, and save money, with an unknown workforce there?
-- Scott Schoenenberger, 9-year employee

ANSWER
We're working with our union partners on the study of various options for how best to restructure the work we do at York and we want to allow the evaluation process to do its work.
So without getting into specifics or speculating about possible outcomes, what I can tell you is that we will be carefully considering many factors in our assessment, and we anticipate the study will determine the answers to many of your questions.
-- Bob Klein, Harley corporate communications.

Like many stories, all the information I collected for the Harley-Davidson story in this morning's edition wasn't able to fit.

So here are some tidbits that didn't make it in:

* Harley executives did have some good news to talk about in their earnings call with investors Thursday morning. At a 9.7 percent drop in overall sales for the first three months of this year, the company has brought its quarterly sales declines below 10 percent.

* Possibly more importantly, things could be a little worse for Harley, as executives also pointed out that they now sell more than half of all heavyweight motorcycles consumers sell in the United States. (Harley's market share went from about 49 percent in the beginning of 2008 to 57 percent in the beginning of 2009.) In other words, its heavyweight motorcycle sales are going down, but it seems others are dropping off far more rapidly.

* Early retirement was offered before the first round of job cuts in 2008 to workers, but only a few reportedly took the offer relative to the total number of cuts the company had planned to make. Now, with all the subsequently planned cuts, some are looking forward to retiring. Nettie Shirey, a 20-year veteran, told me that she had 64 days to go as of Thursday's job-cut announcement and that she feels lucky she has the option.

Keep checking back for more Harley-Davidson coverage.

Harley-Davidson's President and CEO Jim Ziemer is retiring soon - just as soon as a replacement is found. It's expected to come some time in 2009.

Ziemer started at Harley operating a freight elevator in 1969, then worked his way through the accounting department and up to chief financial officer in 1990. He became CEO in 2005.

So what do you think? If you know much about Ziemer's time at Harley's helm, what kind of a CEO was he? And as for the future, what kind of person should be running the company for the next few years, and what skills and background should he or she have?

Feel free to comment, or drop me a line: (717) 771-2035 or bburkey@ydr.com.

Another work week has come and gone and here's your round up of the latest and greatest business stories of the week.

If you haven't check out our week-long DUI special, you'll want to catch up on the coverage here.

Harley-Davidson and Johnson Controls released their earnings reports.

McDonald's gets a facelift.

Americans less fishy.

Environmentalists sue the EPA???

And for fun, here's the ad campaign I'm currently obsessed with:

It's Friday so there's always time for a ridiculous YouTube video, like this one of a bunch of professional soccer players attempting to sing James Blunt's You're Beautiful and playing with a puppy in the locker room. Too funny.

(Thanks to Behindthebadge.com for this!)

And now, your business news before you head out for the weekend.

Apple released its newest toy today.

Comcast could be in hot water with the FCC.

Who knows the fate of the planned Steve & Barry's.

Harley begins layoffs.

Arm and Hammer is A'OK to Jackson Township.