Hope Initiative Party
For many decades Ford Motor Company has been known as a Detroit powerhouse. Historically Ford has supplied thousands of Southeastern Michiganders with gainful employment, however it seems that the once cohesive bond is beginning to strain. Ford recently announced that it plans to build yet again another manufacturing plant in China. The plant will reportedly cost some $760 million to build, this just two weeks after the automotive giant announced it will spend $600 million to expand one of their existing plants in China. This equates to over a billion dollars spent abroad on construction and manufacturing supply jobs. To date Ford currently has three factories operating in China employing some 15,364 Chinese citizens not counting the new facility they plan to build. In 2006, Ford closed over 10 manufacturing plants in North America of which, 2 were Michigan plants. It seems that Ford has forgotten the very people who helped build their company to the world-class manufacturing company that it is today.
Ford contest they are expanding their manufacturing in hopes to capture a greater market share of the China’s automotive market. Ford currently holds a 2 percent market share in China with a goal of an additional 5 percent per year for the next decade. This lofty goal seems to be somewhat statistically unreachable based on the fact that the Chinese auto market itself has been on a steady decline. So what is Ford Motor Company really trying to do there? Is this merely a way for this U.S. Corporation to obtain labor and materials at a cheaper rate? One thing that is clear is that one of the oldest and largest automotive companies in the world has seemingly abandoned the very community that aided them on their rise to prominence. This type of corporate community infidelity can no longer be tolerated by American communities whose very founding centered around the beginnings of these now corporate giants. American communities such as Detroit, Flint, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh have fallen prey to such infidelity. These communities continue to struggle with economic recovery in the wake of major manufacturing jobs leaving many in those communities unemployed for years. The careless attitude of putting profit before employees has to stop. We as a nation cannot continue to allow corporations to open the global employment floodgates and not hold them accountable. There has to be some sort of checks and balances that can be instituted to assure that our country’s economic backbone remains intact.
A survey has been posted to Survcast: http://survcast.com/Betrayal-of-The-American-Autoworker-HIP-Wire <= Question #2: Should American companies be forced to hire American workers?
OK, but what can we do about it? Buy American made Toyotas? Even if the cars and trucks are assembled in America, where were the parts made? Mexico? Someone should start a campaign again that rewards people who buy strictly American, and the products should be certified 100% American, so that cheating companies can’t import all the parts, and then just have them assembled here…
That would be a great incentive for our government to offer. Let’s face it Corporate America only cares about the bottom line and nothing else. As long as NATO and the like exist jobs will continue to leave our country from all sectors.