Wis. Harley workers approve contract to freeze pay

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100913/ap_on_bi_ge/us_harley_davidson_contract

Harley-Davidson has took a HUGE hit with the slow in the economy and the housing crisis. Folks were buying Harleys and playing biker on the weekends a few years ago. Now Craigslist is full of Harleys that need to be sold ASAP.

take a hit keep your job keep the jobs here in the US and build or rebuild the company but just keep it working even if at the skeleton level. Go H-D keep the legend alive, keep the focus and keep doing what you guys do best. I hope the best for the workers and motor company.

The bad thing is H-D already outsources alot of their parts to Taiwan and other countries. I just hope they don't end up like the Aircraft industry.

altho i read years ago boeing was looking at making parts in china, i dont think ive ever installed a foriegn made part on a 767

Are you guys kidding, "Diamond" Jim Doyle our much beloved Wisconsin governor levied a tax on Harley last year against all profits without regards of the origin (i.e. global not local) witch darn near broke them last year. Not to mention all the baby boomers waking up to an empty 401k and hearing loss form the stupid "LPSL" campaign. Now that the state has bankrupted Harley, with huge unfair taxes, now I get to bail them out on a state and federal level, I bet I don't even get a potato machine out of the deal. Not that I want one, I prefer my twins Italian with a side of dry clutch.

i'm sure the state had better uses for the money than h-d, like paying unemployment to the laid off h-d workers, funny how that works

Exactly, we just went through the same thing last year with Mercury marine, they were moving to OK until Diamond Jim stepped in with my cash. Oh yeah, we also have purchased a few sports stadiums in the last few years. November 2nd can't come fast enough for me.

$50
I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberals, were standing there, so I asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? '
She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.' Her parents beamed.
'Wow...what a worthy goal..' I told her, 'But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. '
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ' Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?

Well I don't know alot about Boeing, but I do know that their 787 Dreamliner is a "Global Made Aircraft".
I live in what use to be called the "Air Capital of the World". Now that Boeing sold off the commerical side of the airplane business in Wichita to Spirit Aerosystems (which is owned by ONEX), This town is slowly dieing. ONEX along with Goldman Sachs are part owners in Hawker Beechcraft and now we just herd that ONEX is looking at the "Idea" of buying Cessna Aircraft. Anyway Hawker Beechcraft & Cessna both have huge plants along with training centers that they built down in Mexico a few years back and both company's have laid off thousands of workers here in the USA.

I think that is absolutely the right attitude




Personally I think Harley Davidson can burn in hell for shutting down the Buell creations but hey, that's just me

a/c consortiums are common place, the 777 is made all over the globe also, assembled here in the u.s.
we sent a cracked pylon to spirit awhile back, then sent a feild trip up to do the work, haven't figured that one out yet.
theres a zillion parts in a large airplane, i aint saying they will never be made overseas, but as of yet i haven't seen anything that wasn't made here.
the article i read stated boeing was looking at parts in china, with a/c production there maybe in 20 years

race was spinnin in the casting, prolly could have tightened it up as the ball was in specs, but the manuel says replace, so...486.00 later it was replaced, theres money in them thar hills

Don't get excited Homes, but UR itty bitty girl story sucks ...

Yep, how can these guys justify eating Buell? They are basically protecting \ keeping what they call their 'intellectual property' ... Seems like a BS thing to do really but you know the deal ...

I hope they make it under any methods ... open UR eyes and look around ... Like anything you see in the business world in the usa in the past 30 yrs or so?

PS -- I have a Harley in my garage but it doesn't have to sold today ... Its just another bike stored away that will be discovered again in the future ...

Jeez, couldn't go through a major town between WA and KS without seeing a freakin H-D sign promoting something overly loud and under powered and selling gear that doesn't provide protection when its needed. They should be R&Ding for wheel chairs to tailor their market to all those boomers that won't be able to ride in a few years....

They should also invest in hearing aid manufacturing.... loud pipes save lives!

Blasphemy!! ( very bad subject to bring up with Harley guys :smirk

Funny, I wonder how the guys over at MV Agusta are doing under HD management???

Didn't they sell them off?

They were trying to unload MV earlier this year . After the economy tanked, I'm sure the demand for very highly priced sportbikes evaporated.

MV was sold.


Harleys are good, reliable bikes. Yeah, they're cruisers. So don't expect a 57 Chevy to handle and perform like a Ferrari. Different types of bikes serve different purposes. My Road King did a great job of hauling my ass through 9 states over 30 days and 8300 miles without any trouble at all. It is the most reliable bike I've ever owned.

In comparison, the fastest failure occurred on my recently purchased 2003 Husqvarna TE610e with just under 2000 miles on it. I got about 100 miles out of it and the cam shaft broke. The broken bits fell down into the stator and bounced around and took it out. Cost $1800 to fix.

Even my F800GS which burned out a clutch at 3600 miles didn't fail on me that quick.

But I won't hold one failure against the Husky or the GS. They're great bikes.

I find it funny that so many riders seem to think a bike has to be high performance or it's crap, yet they drive a Ford Focus. They get that different cars serve different purposes, but they don't seem to really get it for bikes...