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'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

theguardian.com

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Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

card_zero wrote: post #121
dragonwriter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the employees have the power then decisions that are good for company but bad for the employees won't be made. "The company" is a fiction. Real parties are, e.g., employees, capital owners, suppliers, and customers (and, to the extent that any of those are corporations or similar convenient fictions, the same kinds of groups with respect to those entities.) With a pure labor coop (which an SCOP isn't quite, put…

But returning to that "quite possibly" remark: is it really possible?

It is an observed difference in behavior, the “quite possibly” qualifies the reason for the difference.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#132

Post by griffzhowl »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #125
griffzhowl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did survive. There are thousands in Spain and Italy especially. One of the most well-known is the Mondragon Corporation from the Basque country, one of Spain's largest comanies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Mondragon is often used by people who don't know much about the subject as a counter example, but if you look under the hood, you'll see it doesn't even compare: Less than half the workers own shares and the majority of shares is held by a small circle of executives in the richest branches. That's basically a standard capitalist pig with some socialist lipstick to give pseudo-Marxists an argument in these discussions…

> anything that truly benefits workers will be at odds with things that benefit the business.

Generally yes, unless the workers own the business.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#133

Post by deanishe »

smcin wrote: post #87
anigbrowl wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like their biggest problem is that the product is so good the domestic market may be saturated. I was pleased to read in the article that they're working to increase exports. I'm a big believer in products that are engineered to last rather than be regularly replaced.

> Sounds like their biggest problem is that the product is so good the domestic market may be saturated. Sad how rare that is these days. Which other companies does that apply to?

Someone asked Rohloff how long their bicycle hub gears last, and the answer was, "We don't know. We've only been making them for 25 years."

A lot of German SMEs still work that way, even if their big engineering companies have rather lost their way.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#134

Post by xwolfi »

dmix wrote: post #53

> the soaring cost of gas and electricity were the firm’s largest and most worrying expense Difficult to have factories when basic utilities are expensive. China has a big advantage there as well, not just in labour costs. They invested heavily in energy infrastructure over the past few decades.

How did they invest in that infrastructure ? The LGFVs they used for that are so large the only way to pay for their loans is to throw in new LGFVs.

If there's a place where the music will stop really suddenly and really hard, it's in China, where all this infrastructure to build cheap glasses will completely crumble under the cost of its own financing. They're not increasing margins, so they're not gonna match their bond yields...

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#135

Post by jpfromlondon »

aaplok wrote: post #124
mytailorisrich wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never claimed nor suggested that their situation is because they are a coop... Most of the replies I got here have not even read my comments, apparently, and completely beside the point or just rush to condemn me for blaspheming. It's like the poor guy who dares disagreeing at a student socialist meeting.

Here is a quote from your original message which I have read and suspect others have too: > In general coops are not good at tough decisions and innovation. > Duralex already went bankrupt several times and they are heading for it again. What's in the article is nice but it's charity not business so unfortunately I am not optimistic. These two paragraphs following each other do make it seem like you are making a conn…

> Duralex already went bankrupt several times and they are heading for it again. What's in the article is nice but it's charity not business so unfortunately I am not optimistic.

Everyone can rally round in their time of need but that doesn't change the fact that Duralex was struggling to begin with, and once this goodwill windfall dries up they'll be back here.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#137

Post by bluebarbet »

Loic wrote: post #58
Broussebar wrote: post #27

As the article said Duralex was the brand use by a large number of school cantinas in France. Inside of each glass there’s a small number used by the brand to identify the mold used for the creation of the glass. For kids that was a way to decide who is going to fetch the water for the table (smaller number or higher number of the table). That’s why the CE is holding his glass like that in the guardian article. Besid…

Durable is really the French household name "par excellence".

You mean Duralex. And maybe not just in France. My British school canteen was monopolised by Duralex too.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #107
anigbrowl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole article documents a product that people do want and like so much that they're willing to donate 4x what the owner-operators of the company asked for. It's odd to see you expressing disdain for 'high school politics' and 'because younger generations don't know' while also displaying such ignorance or disregard of the subject matter, like watching factual waves roll in and dash themselves on the rocks of obdu…

The article is about a failing company on the verge of bankruptcy and which already went bankrupt 4 times this century, with turnover down 20% over the last 10 years... My reply was to a specific comment. I do express disdain for those who preach socialism in 2025 because, as an European who was alive during the 20th century and has some mileage I do know the subject matter... And everyone should, too because of the…

I'm probably older than you; perhaps that's why your argumentation seems so juvenile. It seems not to have occurred to you that bankruptcies can occur other than for reasons of pure supply and demand or product quality.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#139

Post by oblio »

constantcrying wrote: post #22

Selling products based on nostalgia does not work. Europe needs to do far more keep it's industry afloat and to make locally produced products competitive. Duralex is currently selling products at 10x the costs of what a similar product, made in China, costs on Amazon. This is not sustainable. These enormous differences in prices mean that only very people can afford their products. It is a brand which sells an every…

> Duralex is currently selling products at 10x the costs of what a similar product, made in China, costs on Amazon.

Got some links to the Chinese glasses of comparable quality?

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#140

Post by rlonstein »

pfdietz wrote: post #56
rlonstein wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they'd want to do is try to recover and reuse heat. In principle, there's no reason "new" heat has to be added each time they heat a batch of glass, if heat can be transferred from cooling glass back to the input materials. Have you worked in any industrial or craft setting involving molten glass or metal? Walked around a workshop? There's no way the heat is going back into the process.

I know there are industrial processes where heat is efficiently recycled, but I agree there are serious practical problems, particularly if the molten glass must be cooled quickly. Still, even somewhat lower grade heat can be upgraded back to high grade heat with high temperature heat pumps.

> I know there are industrial processes where heat is efficiently recycled, but I agree there are serious practical problems, particularly if the molten glass must be cooled quickly.

My experience working with glass is that you _don't_ want it cooled quickly. It will shatter or get internal stresses that cause it to shatter later. You anneal it in a slowly cooling oven over time. Some steels and brass can be annealed slowly and that heat could, I suppose, be captured. Tempering probably not.

> Still, even somewhat lower grade heat can be upgraded back to high grade heat with high temperature heat pumps.

Which requires energy and incurs losses. If you have energy, assuming electricity, that's cheap enough to scavenge low-level waste heat you probably don't need to recapture the heat.

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