81–90 of 207 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed]
Seriously? What citation is needed? The unions are why they didn’t switch to a less labor-intensive process. How is that a controversial statement?
Or because to believe that propaganda as a "universal truth" it would mean unions are not self-interested entities (unlike businesses and people).
> US Steel has agreed to be bought by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, in a $14.1 billion deal. > Earlier this summer the United Steelworkers union vowed to only support a proposed offer by another unionized American steel company, Cleveland Cliffs, to buy US Steel, in a cash and stock deal then valued at $32.53 a share, or 40% less than Nippon’s all cash offer. The US Steel board rejected that offer and sta…
on why it failed: > US Steel and other steelmakers eventually followed those foreign competitors to upgrade factories and equipment, but they still largely used the older methods to make steel by melting raw materials such as iron ore in giant blast furnaces. > Those “integrated” steelmakers soon lagged behind so-called “mini-mills,” nonunion competitors that use more efficient electric arc furnaces to turn old steel…
I know it's a tired old adage that labor / labor unions was the reason for American steel manufacturing decline and rise of Japanese dominance. But from the inside, that simply wasn't so -- it was more a case that Japanese mills not only more modern but the entire manufacturing process, from casting to finished product, was more efficient. Even when new US mills gained new technology, it wasn't thought through and decisions seemed to be made the basis of old boy network than solid business acumen.
I'm interested in how the United Steelworkers thinks about the generally better track record of Japanese companies with labor relations vs. American management. This makes it seem like it was purely an "American First" kind of sentiment, whereas I could imagine this being better for the workers themselves. This then makes me wonder if the Steelworkers is more company union (ie their leaders are bought off / cushy wit…
As an example, all Japanese automakers that start factories in the US start them in anti-union states and take a very hostile anti-union stance. This is in contrast with the very pro union stance these companies take in Japan. But Japanese workers do not strike in solidarity with american workers. They consider america a completely different issue.
Thus, it is guaranteed that as Nippon takes over US steel, they will be as hostile to unions as the laws will allow them, regardless of what their policies in Japan are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
on why it failed: > US Steel and other steelmakers eventually followed those foreign competitors to upgrade factories and equipment, but they still largely used the older methods to make steel by melting raw materials such as iron ore in giant blast furnaces. > Those “integrated” steelmakers soon lagged behind so-called “mini-mills,” nonunion competitors that use more efficient electric arc furnaces to turn old steel…
The glaring issue I see is that if "integrated" mills start shutting down, where will the old steel scrap for the mini-mills eventually come from? Someone somewhere has to be making new steel.
I think regions / steel industries in the region go through phases. I can draw upon my experience with one of the biggest steel manufacturers in India and Europe. SE Asia is going through a phase where most of the steel consumption is met by primary steel, new steel made from blast furnaces consuming iron ore. A lot of that steel is exported but there is a very big domestic market.
The need for secondary steel (made from old steel scraps) will become important in the future for SE Asia. Back in the US, this is already the case.
Primary and Secondary steel have different properties. Secondary steel can not be used for some applications, they can only use Primary. Vice versa, using primary steel for some applications might not be economically feasible for some applications.
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The Reuters article is just a history of Chinese steel production. It doesn't support anything you said. According to the CNN article, Nucor, an American non-unionized American company, is successfully utilizing mini-mills. > One pioneer of this mini-mill technology, Charlotte-based Nucor has a market capitalization of $42.5 billion compared to US Steel’s value of just over $14 billion as set by this deal. > Nucor is…
>> It doesn't support anything you said > What China could not achieve by Stalinist state planning or Maoist revolutionary enthusiasm, it achieved by letting a million private-sector smelters bloom. Good luck with whatever.
> US Steel has agreed to be bought by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, in a $14.1 billion deal. > Earlier this summer the United Steelworkers union vowed to only support a proposed offer by another unionized American steel company, Cleveland Cliffs, to buy US Steel, in a cash and stock deal then valued at $32.53 a share, or 40% less than Nippon’s all cash offer. The US Steel board rejected that offer and sta…
This btw is why Japanese cars are better than American cars. It's objectively better to work in a unionized environment. Let's you be "lazier" and get away with half-asserey - great from the worker perspective but from the perspective of a prospective buyer, ideally your product is produced by people who work as hard as possible. The Japanese have a work-hard without half-assing attitude. This is why Toyota/Lexus hav…
> US Steel has agreed to be bought by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, in a $14.1 billion deal. > Earlier this summer the United Steelworkers union vowed to only support a proposed offer by another unionized American steel company, Cleveland Cliffs, to buy US Steel, in a cash and stock deal then valued at $32.53 a share, or 40% less than Nippon’s all cash offer. The US Steel board rejected that offer and sta…
Honest question: are Japanese industrial workers (steel, auto, etc) significantly worse off (pay, conditions, security, etc) vs Americans? I sort of assume that at this point they are an advanced economy and there would be roughly parity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
on why it failed: > US Steel and other steelmakers eventually followed those foreign competitors to upgrade factories and equipment, but they still largely used the older methods to make steel by melting raw materials such as iron ore in giant blast furnaces. > Those “integrated” steelmakers soon lagged behind so-called “mini-mills,” nonunion competitors that use more efficient electric arc furnaces to turn old steel…
The glaring issue I see is that if "integrated" mills start shutting down, where will the old steel scrap for the mini-mills eventually come from? Someone somewhere has to be making new steel.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
on why it failed: > US Steel and other steelmakers eventually followed those foreign competitors to upgrade factories and equipment, but they still largely used the older methods to make steel by melting raw materials such as iron ore in giant blast furnaces. > Those “integrated” steelmakers soon lagged behind so-called “mini-mills,” nonunion competitors that use more efficient electric arc furnaces to turn old steel…
The question is... who's going to smelt iron ore? In fact I think it was the head of US Steel, who put it succinctly several years ago: Somebody has to turn iron ore into iron.
And globally in descending reserves order: Australia, Brazil, Russia. China's extraction:reserves ratio is much higher and will exhaust reserves much quicker than the others.
So it'd make more sense to smelt it close, given the volume/weight ratio of ore to refined material.
Transport by sea... but that's still A LOT of tonnage to move ore.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267381/world-reserves-of...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_iron_or...
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I believe Toyota @ NUMMI actually showed that they could win over the union and get everyone bought into their lean culture, but it took time / patience. Notably, this plant was considered a failure before because the of the antagonism between labor/mgmt led to really toxic behavior. GM blamed the union labor, but Toyota ended up firing the managers and got buy in from labor because of their long-term / labor-centric…
And yet NUMMI failed. https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5514/4350856/ Then the building became Solyndra, which also failed. GM, of course, is one of the stupidest companies on Earth, so they'd have trouble selling free beer to college football fans. If you want to blame them you won't get any argument from me.
I generally think USS/GM are kinda beyond saving, but even incremental change could be good, and I think Toyota still knows how to run a car plant better than GM.