We need more industry
Discussion
Dr Jekyll said:
Surely what we need is for those only qualified for manual labour to get some useful skills. There is no mechanism to create demand for workers with nothing to offer.
Indeed, so what mindless short-sighted lousy policies that were brought forward ended apprenticeship training. All common sense people were shouting at the time that it was a huge blunder. As I have mentioned earlier, sometimes we have to go back to go forwards. At least the schemes are being re-instated. Dr Jekyll said:
Surely what we need is for those only qualified for manual labour to get some useful skills. There is no mechanism to create demand for workers with nothing to offer.
Wasn't it Mandelson (speaking of the Corus shutdown) who said "we don't need these smokestack industries"??
Mojocvh said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Surely what we need is for those only qualified for manual labour to get some useful skills. There is no mechanism to create demand for workers with nothing to offer.
Wasn't it Mandelson (speaking of the Corus shutdown) who said "we don't need these smokestack industries"??
And it was Berndt Pischetsreider who, on buying Rover in 1998, commented in an interview; "In Britain you seem to want to build an economy based around cutting each other's hair. Here in Germany we prefer to keep our manufacturing jobs."Look at the success MINI has become. That was an MG Rover design, all ready for the 'off' when BMW swept in.
It is management, not design, engineering and manufacture, that doesn't work right in this country. A car designed, engineered and built in Britain it seems can only become a roaring success if Germans run the company.
If that had been left to John Towers and his Phoenix mob they would have looked at the coffers, realised they weren't personally going to profit quite as much as they'd like, not justified the R&D for anything like the MINI project, shut it all down and trousered as much as possible before pissing off to a tax haven.
I remember an interview on TV with a worker at Abingdon on the day it was shut down. The chap was totally bemused. He said something along the lines of:
'We had the lowest strike record of any plant in the company (BL), the lowest number of disputes, a consistent record of discussing how to make the plant more efficient and we are the first to go. What does that say to others?'
The interviewer then came back with some stats about no unofficial strikes or work stopages.
The chap went on to say that the 'others', one assumes at other plants in BL, ridiculed their attitude but 'we knew better.'
The message was clear.
'We had the lowest strike record of any plant in the company (BL), the lowest number of disputes, a consistent record of discussing how to make the plant more efficient and we are the first to go. What does that say to others?'
The interviewer then came back with some stats about no unofficial strikes or work stopages.
The chap went on to say that the 'others', one assumes at other plants in BL, ridiculed their attitude but 'we knew better.'
The message was clear.
Derek Smith said:
I remember an interview on TV with a worker at Abingdon on the day it was shut down. The chap was totally bemused. He said something along the lines of:
'We had the lowest strike record of any plant in the company (BL), the lowest number of disputes, a consistent record of discussing how to make the plant more efficient and we are the first to go. What does that say to others?'
The interviewer then came back with some stats about no unofficial strikes or work stopages.
The chap went on to say that the 'others', one assumes at other plants in BL, ridiculed their attitude but 'we knew better.'
The message was clear.
Which was? That they should have been more militant?'We had the lowest strike record of any plant in the company (BL), the lowest number of disputes, a consistent record of discussing how to make the plant more efficient and we are the first to go. What does that say to others?'
The interviewer then came back with some stats about no unofficial strikes or work stopages.
The chap went on to say that the 'others', one assumes at other plants in BL, ridiculed their attitude but 'we knew better.'
The message was clear.
No, their beef for getting laid off first should have been with all the other plants and unions that were a pain in the arse and got to keep their jobs. They should have taken it up with their union. Oh the irony.
Dr Jekyll said:
DonkeyApple said:
The reality is that we require mechanisms that will create employment for large numbers of manual labourers, with an employment spectrum that allows the harder working and the brighter to rise through the ranks.
Surely what we need is for those only qualified for manual labour to get some useful skills. There is no mechanism to create demand for workers with nothing to offer.I think the elephant in the room is the wish not to discuss the fact that there may well be a not insignificant proportion of any society who can only carry out relatively basic manual tasks under supervision.
It is in this area that a developed country cannot easily find sufficient employment opportunities.
We could (and we should) ensure that as many as possible are able to find suitable employment but we would still be left with a group that cannot function in a developed working environment.
We may be developed but population dynamics haven't altered.
Dr Jekyll said:
DonkeyApple said:
The reality is that we require mechanisms that will create employment for large numbers of manual labourers, with an employment spectrum that allows the harder working and the brighter to rise through the ranks.
Surely what we need is for those only qualified for manual labour to get some useful skills. There is no mechanism to create demand for workers with nothing to offer.If people want to screw around at school, then they only have themselves to blame when their potential employers range from MacDonald's to Burger King, maybe with a high point in a career of customer service at Subway.
tinman0 said:
We have a system! It's called "a free education".
If people want to screw around at school, then they only have themselves to blame when their potential employers range from MacDonald's to Burger King, maybe with a high point in a career of customer service at Subway.
+ 1If people want to screw around at school, then they only have themselves to blame when their potential employers range from MacDonald's to Burger King, maybe with a high point in a career of customer service at Subway.
Dr Jekyll said:
tinman0 said:
We have a system! It's called "a free education".
If people want to screw around at school, then they only have themselves to blame when their potential employers range from MacDonald's to Burger King, maybe with a high point in a career of customer service at Subway.
+ 1If people want to screw around at school, then they only have themselves to blame when their potential employers range from MacDonald's to Burger King, maybe with a high point in a career of customer service at Subway.
50% of a successful education is down to attitude, both fostered by the parents and a willingness to embrace a work ethic, but the other 50% comes from the ability of the teachers to do their jobs they way they need to and teach knowledge and skills that are actually useful in the real world, rather than just for the sake of some good GCSE results.
Also, life's what you make of it. A good friend of mine worked behind a bar throughout his time at university. When he graduated, he was offered the manager's job, which he did for two years.
Ironically, nowadays he manages a branch of McDonalds (although he's currently in the process of jumping ship to fulfil a lifelong dream and join the RAF).
tinman0 said:
Which was? That they should have been more militant?
No, their beef for getting laid off first should have been with all the other plants and unions that were a pain in the arse and got to keep their jobs. They should have taken it up with their union. Oh the irony.
Are you suggesting that the unions decided which plant should close first?No, their beef for getting laid off first should have been with all the other plants and unions that were a pain in the arse and got to keep their jobs. They should have taken it up with their union. Oh the irony.
The message sent out by the management of BL was that they didn't care if you worked hard and did your best. Mind you, the saving grave of it was that their management was so transparently inept that no one would take any notice of them.
Derek Smith said:
tinman0 said:
Which was? That they should have been more militant?
No, their beef for getting laid off first should have been with all the other plants and unions that were a pain in the arse and got to keep their jobs. They should have taken it up with their union. Oh the irony.
Are you suggesting that the unions decided which plant should close first?No, their beef for getting laid off first should have been with all the other plants and unions that were a pain in the arse and got to keep their jobs. They should have taken it up with their union. Oh the irony.
The message sent out by the management of BL was that they didn't care if you worked hard and did your best. Mind you, the saving grave of it was that their management was so transparently inept that no one would take any notice of them.
Good to see all those factories still in business today.
crankedup said:
I don't want to go back to the past, but have you noticed how China are exploiting for their own National wealth, the natural resources available to them? The past, for me it was hard work but at least very rewarding both in terms of financial reward and personal satisfaction. Do you not know that sometimes you have to go back to see the future? If we could extract and use coal from the U.K. then I have no doubt that the extraction techniques would be far removed from that used last century. My hopes in this particular industry may be some distance away in terms of time but I find having positive thoughts is the only way forward. We need people in the U.K. who are forward thinking, determined and positive, no point in casually accepting second best. Its only my point of view, if you think I'm an idiot so be it.
No they arent. They are exploiting everybody else's natural resources. The boom in base metal consumption over the majority of the last decade has pretty much been fueled by the Chinese swamping the traditional market with demand. The Chinese have been doing deals with damn near every govt in Africa with significant mineral deposits. Their demand far outstrips their own natural domestic supply and they have no external regulation on them.And no, you dont have to go back at all. That has been the basis of every Luddite argument throughout history and it has been wrong every time and prooven to have been wrong everytime. Fortunately we have engineers to ensure we keep moving forwards.
Well i'm proud to say we've been in manufacturing since 1965 and are for now anyway still plodding on. What has not helped us are the banks not lending to potential customers, Raw material price rises which eats into our profit margins (electronics) but the biggest burden that we have encountered are the price hikes of business rates and a almost constant bombardment of new and potential damaging government legislation that is thrust upon us.
The only reason we are still here is we have made drastic changes to the design of our equipment coupled with a decent buying strategy and low overheads makes us competative - even compared to China, but by Christ they catch up fast.
I cannot even begin to tell you how damaging the last Government was to manufacturing and as part of my job i speak to many small businesses and judging by their feedback they are in total agreement with me, The ones that are still around incidentally - I have recently picked up a tool that we own from a compression moulding manafacturer for the second time in 10 years as the companies we have used have had to close. Both times the owners lost almost everything and now dont have a pot to pee in.
I really hope i am wrong, but after speaking to all these small companies only a couple are doing really well, the rest are struggling and believe manufacturing has had its day.
Sad really.
The only reason we are still here is we have made drastic changes to the design of our equipment coupled with a decent buying strategy and low overheads makes us competative - even compared to China, but by Christ they catch up fast.
I cannot even begin to tell you how damaging the last Government was to manufacturing and as part of my job i speak to many small businesses and judging by their feedback they are in total agreement with me, The ones that are still around incidentally - I have recently picked up a tool that we own from a compression moulding manafacturer for the second time in 10 years as the companies we have used have had to close. Both times the owners lost almost everything and now dont have a pot to pee in.
I really hope i am wrong, but after speaking to all these small companies only a couple are doing really well, the rest are struggling and believe manufacturing has had its day.
Sad really.
We can't really manufacture much. Once it's gone, you can't really get industry back. Of course, small industry is much more flexible, but we're never going to make steel, cars and heavy machinery in any proud amount ever again, it's just too expensive. This is why the only 'surviving' car companies are very high-end and don't rely on price, such as RR and Bentley. There's one Vauxhall plant, and several Japanese companies make cars here. GM is the worlds largest company or near-abouts (in terms of sales-revenue) thus a minute factory in Ellesmere means is dot on a map. But these often receive a lot of government support, and most of the time the supply chain involves China somewhere along the line.
UK workers demand a certain wage and demand they work a certain (low for the world, but the highest in Europe, thankfully) number of hours. This means that they aren't as attractive as thousands of well educated, disciplined Chinese workers. While British workers are on the whole more productive than Chinese workers, they demand a higher premium for their labour and work less of the time, so generally China is just a better place to do business in terms of costs.
It'd be economically inefficient to try and force companies to come here, but they won't unless we combine the best of Europe's (i.e Germany's) methods of manufacturing and America's way of doing Business.
German workers are among the least productive in the world. Now, of course, this is an impossible fact, but supposedly (according to a book i've read) true. They are unproductive because like all Europeans, when made to work they b
h and moan and go on strike for a hundred days before coming back into work and doing so only 35 hours a week then retiring at 60 to a gigantic state pension. For example, many people think that a German car plant is the most productive in Europe, but no, it's the Nissan plant in Sunderland, which is the most productive car plant in the world (I think). However, they make superb quality goods with excellent materials when they do work. This is how Germany succeeds in having a large trade surplus and large current account surplus. They make the best stuff in the world! If we all copied this in the UK, i.e by putting money into education, and by that I mean creating a true, hard-line knowledge intensive education curriculum and actually taught kids initiative and to be ambitious and to be the most productive member of society,(not that they do this in Germany) and to shut and do what your told, then British workers would, in 10-20 years, be very educated and have a vast amount of potential to manufacturers who wanted to create high-value industrial goods.
If we all worked as hard and as long as the Americans, then we could amplify this effect. While we work the longest hours in Europe and have better-than-average productivity rates, if we worked as long as the Americans (by this I mean on average, and i'm quoting a from a book, so don't bite my head off) and were as productive as them (i.e by truly embracing IT rather than simply looking-down at it) combined with German-style efficiency and quality, then who knows!
Of course, this post is my personal assumption of what could happen, and yes, there's about a million things here that would never happen, like teaching kids to shut up and do what they're told, but I can hope!
UK workers demand a certain wage and demand they work a certain (low for the world, but the highest in Europe, thankfully) number of hours. This means that they aren't as attractive as thousands of well educated, disciplined Chinese workers. While British workers are on the whole more productive than Chinese workers, they demand a higher premium for their labour and work less of the time, so generally China is just a better place to do business in terms of costs.
It'd be economically inefficient to try and force companies to come here, but they won't unless we combine the best of Europe's (i.e Germany's) methods of manufacturing and America's way of doing Business.
German workers are among the least productive in the world. Now, of course, this is an impossible fact, but supposedly (according to a book i've read) true. They are unproductive because like all Europeans, when made to work they b
h and moan and go on strike for a hundred days before coming back into work and doing so only 35 hours a week then retiring at 60 to a gigantic state pension. For example, many people think that a German car plant is the most productive in Europe, but no, it's the Nissan plant in Sunderland, which is the most productive car plant in the world (I think). However, they make superb quality goods with excellent materials when they do work. This is how Germany succeeds in having a large trade surplus and large current account surplus. They make the best stuff in the world! If we all copied this in the UK, i.e by putting money into education, and by that I mean creating a true, hard-line knowledge intensive education curriculum and actually taught kids initiative and to be ambitious and to be the most productive member of society,(not that they do this in Germany) and to shut and do what your told, then British workers would, in 10-20 years, be very educated and have a vast amount of potential to manufacturers who wanted to create high-value industrial goods.If we all worked as hard and as long as the Americans, then we could amplify this effect. While we work the longest hours in Europe and have better-than-average productivity rates, if we worked as long as the Americans (by this I mean on average, and i'm quoting a from a book, so don't bite my head off) and were as productive as them (i.e by truly embracing IT rather than simply looking-down at it) combined with German-style efficiency and quality, then who knows!
Of course, this post is my personal assumption of what could happen, and yes, there's about a million things here that would never happen, like teaching kids to shut up and do what they're told, but I can hope!
WE CAN fkING MANUFACTURE!!!!
We just cant do it in our "traditional" industries as our society has moved beyond the cheap mass produced market. We cannot compete there. That isnt the only sodding manufacturing though.
The talk of the car industry and Germany is fine, but that only works for the Germans and Japs as they expanded into our market share and took the base through ineptness on our own part in the 60s and 70s. They also changed the game, moving the car from being a "motorcar" into being a "lifestyle product". To keep in the game there is countless, endless and massively expensive innovation. Dont forget America watched its own domestic car industry lunch itself in 2 yrs.
Where we can go though is in high end manufacturing. For some reason I cannot for the life of me work out PH seems to decry everything "green", when in reality it just means "more efficient". Its just another revolution/extreme evolution in the world and engineering lead. Hey, guess what we are pretty good at...well done, Brucie Bonus Points for you. Its a high end world, high end industry, high margins, high skill based and I keep banging this drum because we are actually pretty damn good at this stuff. The space and satellite industry is currently blooming aswell and will only continue to grow, esp as it becomes more corporate and less govt based. Guess which engineers are most in demand around Europe? You want a new aerospace industry? Its on a plate right now if someone wants it.
The world has changed, old opportunities died but with that change comes new ones. To an extent Blair had the seeds of a good idea in pushing University education to the masses, the trouble is he and Labour thought it was enough just to provide general mass higher education. A few nice words about the new high tech world, but they had no dream, no vision, no strategy to take the country in a direction. There is a world of opportunity out there for Britain right now if someone actually has the balls to stand up and tell the country about it. Tell the country, show it a vision of the future of whats possible and whats needed...then sit back and let the country get to work on how to do it. There is an industrial revolution going on out there at the moment and the last time I looked we did those better than anyone else around.
kING MANUFACTURE!!!!We just cant do it in our "traditional" industries as our society has moved beyond the cheap mass produced market. We cannot compete there. That isnt the only sodding manufacturing though.
The talk of the car industry and Germany is fine, but that only works for the Germans and Japs as they expanded into our market share and took the base through ineptness on our own part in the 60s and 70s. They also changed the game, moving the car from being a "motorcar" into being a "lifestyle product". To keep in the game there is countless, endless and massively expensive innovation. Dont forget America watched its own domestic car industry lunch itself in 2 yrs.
Where we can go though is in high end manufacturing. For some reason I cannot for the life of me work out PH seems to decry everything "green", when in reality it just means "more efficient". Its just another revolution/extreme evolution in the world and engineering lead. Hey, guess what we are pretty good at...well done, Brucie Bonus Points for you. Its a high end world, high end industry, high margins, high skill based and I keep banging this drum because we are actually pretty damn good at this stuff. The space and satellite industry is currently blooming aswell and will only continue to grow, esp as it becomes more corporate and less govt based. Guess which engineers are most in demand around Europe? You want a new aerospace industry? Its on a plate right now if someone wants it.
The world has changed, old opportunities died but with that change comes new ones. To an extent Blair had the seeds of a good idea in pushing University education to the masses, the trouble is he and Labour thought it was enough just to provide general mass higher education. A few nice words about the new high tech world, but they had no dream, no vision, no strategy to take the country in a direction. There is a world of opportunity out there for Britain right now if someone actually has the balls to stand up and tell the country about it. Tell the country, show it a vision of the future of whats possible and whats needed...then sit back and let the country get to work on how to do it. There is an industrial revolution going on out there at the moment and the last time I looked we did those better than anyone else around.
Edited by DJC on Monday 21st February 09:25
DJC said:
WE CAN fkING MANUFACTURE!!!!
We just cant do it in our "traditional" industries as our society has moved beyond the cheap mass produced market. We cannot compete there. That isnt the only sodding manufacturing though.
The talk of the car industry and Germany is fine, but that only works for the Germans and Japs as they expanded into our market share and took the base through ineptness on our own part in the 60s and 70s. They also changed the game, moving the car from being a "motorcar" into being a "lifestyle product". To keep in the game there is countless, endless and massively expensive innovation. Dont forget America watched its own domestic car industry lunch itself in 2 yrs.
Where we can go though is in high end manufacturing. For some reason I cannot for the life of me work out PH seems to decry everything "green", when in reality it just means "more efficient". Its just another revolution/extreme evolution in the world and engineering lead. Hey, guess what we are pretty good at...well done, Brucie Bonus Points for you. Its a high end world, high end industry, high margins, high skill based and I keep banging this drum because we are actually pretty damn good at this stuff. The space and satellite industry is currently blooming aswell and will only continue to grow, esp as it becomes more corporate and less govt based. Guess which engineers are most in demand around Europe? You want a new aerospace industry? Its on a plate right now if someone wants it.
The world has changed, old opportunities died but with that change comes new ones. To an extent Blair had the seeds of a good idea in pushing University education to the masses, the trouble is he and Labour thought it was enough just to provide general mass highed education. A few nice words about the new high tech world, but they had no dream, no vision, no strategy to take the country in a direction. There is a world of opportunity out there for Britain right now if someone actually has the balls to stand up and tell the country about it. Tell the country, show it a vision of the future of whats possible and whats needed...then sit back and let the country get to work on how to do it. There is an industrial revolution going on out there at the moment and the last time I looked we did those bette than anyone else around.
kING MANUFACTURE!!!!We just cant do it in our "traditional" industries as our society has moved beyond the cheap mass produced market. We cannot compete there. That isnt the only sodding manufacturing though.
The talk of the car industry and Germany is fine, but that only works for the Germans and Japs as they expanded into our market share and took the base through ineptness on our own part in the 60s and 70s. They also changed the game, moving the car from being a "motorcar" into being a "lifestyle product". To keep in the game there is countless, endless and massively expensive innovation. Dont forget America watched its own domestic car industry lunch itself in 2 yrs.
Where we can go though is in high end manufacturing. For some reason I cannot for the life of me work out PH seems to decry everything "green", when in reality it just means "more efficient". Its just another revolution/extreme evolution in the world and engineering lead. Hey, guess what we are pretty good at...well done, Brucie Bonus Points for you. Its a high end world, high end industry, high margins, high skill based and I keep banging this drum because we are actually pretty damn good at this stuff. The space and satellite industry is currently blooming aswell and will only continue to grow, esp as it becomes more corporate and less govt based. Guess which engineers are most in demand around Europe? You want a new aerospace industry? Its on a plate right now if someone wants it.
The world has changed, old opportunities died but with that change comes new ones. To an extent Blair had the seeds of a good idea in pushing University education to the masses, the trouble is he and Labour thought it was enough just to provide general mass highed education. A few nice words about the new high tech world, but they had no dream, no vision, no strategy to take the country in a direction. There is a world of opportunity out there for Britain right now if someone actually has the balls to stand up and tell the country about it. Tell the country, show it a vision of the future of whats possible and whats needed...then sit back and let the country get to work on how to do it. There is an industrial revolution going on out there at the moment and the last time I looked we did those bette than anyone else around.
Well said.DJC said:
No they arent. They are exploiting everybody else's natural resources. The boom in base metal consumption over the majority of the last decade has pretty much been fueled by the Chinese swamping the traditional market with demand. The Chinese have been doing deals with damn near every govt in Africa with significant mineral deposits. Their demand far outstrips their own natural domestic supply and they have no external regulation on them.
And no, you dont have to go back at all. That has been the basis of every Luddite argument throughout history and it has been wrong every time and prooven to have been wrong everytime. Fortunately we have engineers to ensure we keep moving forwards.
'Sometimes you have to go back to go forward' note the use of the word 'sometimes'. The old saying 'why re-invent the wheel' comes to mind. Its not to say that the future visions are ignored of course, but looking backwards can sometimes stimulate differing avenues of thought, that's all. This is the worst of text debate, its difficult to get across the true meaning of the expressions and also the reading of text can not always convey detailed thought. Probably best discussed over a pint And no, you dont have to go back at all. That has been the basis of every Luddite argument throughout history and it has been wrong every time and prooven to have been wrong everytime. Fortunately we have engineers to ensure we keep moving forwards.
China are exploiting World resources just as we have been doing and all other Western Countries, its just the Chinese are better at it then us by employing cheap labour to use the resource, its not rocket science is it. Who do you think are buying all the cheaper products from China? exactly, the West. The World keeps turning but the East is beginning to benefit to a greater extent then us.
I was watching a youtube style video from a 'High Tech' frying pan manufacturer in China.
The coating was the high tech part, the video showed off the new gleaming Chinese factory inside all the pots and pans were been pressed and stamped out using what looked like 1940's~60's presses, just like the presses that used to fill the workshops of the UK and were shipped out over the last 30 years.
A manufacturing power press no matter when it was made does a basic function and will work for the next 100+ years but instead of knocking them out in the UK they are now been stamped out in China, these pots and pans are then sold back to the UK/World as high tech.
The UK is so short-sighted in this respect and killed off it's own industry for a quick buck for the guys up top. We really do like to fcku ourselves over!
(Oh and the high tech non-stick coating doesn't work
)
The coating was the high tech part, the video showed off the new gleaming Chinese factory inside all the pots and pans were been pressed and stamped out using what looked like 1940's~60's presses, just like the presses that used to fill the workshops of the UK and were shipped out over the last 30 years.
A manufacturing power press no matter when it was made does a basic function and will work for the next 100+ years but instead of knocking them out in the UK they are now been stamped out in China, these pots and pans are then sold back to the UK/World as high tech.
The UK is so short-sighted in this respect and killed off it's own industry for a quick buck for the guys up top. We really do like to fcku ourselves over!
(Oh and the high tech non-stick coating doesn't work
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