British Leyland -They were crap and they knew they were.
Discussion
AW111 said:
Were the much-talked-about union and quality troubles specific to BL? How did Ford compare?
My (dodgy) memory has escorts hanging on here in Australia after BL / BMC products had largely disappeared.
ps My father bought a Triumph Dolomite new - not the sprint - and the only failure I recall was a broken throttle cable, so they weren't all lemons.
Ford had union and quality issues too, I've heard stories of apple cores being left inside the dashboards of Cortinas by the production line workers. Also models being in short supply because of strikes halting production.My (dodgy) memory has escorts hanging on here in Australia after BL / BMC products had largely disappeared.
ps My father bought a Triumph Dolomite new - not the sprint - and the only failure I recall was a broken throttle cable, so they weren't all lemons.
I hate to quote Clarkson but I think he may be onto something; the British 'disease' is one of "that'll do" where it doesn't matter if you do a half-assed job as someone else will pick up the pieces or take the blame. How many of us at work are frustrated in attempts to do things properly by the action (or inaction) of others; or the need to sort out the mistakes of someone who couldn't be bothered to get something right in the first place.
From what I've seen in a car manufacturing context the Germans used to be very thorough at checking every component and taking pride in getting things right. It had its own problems, which nearly crippled the industry in the 1990s, but on the whole the German industry has avoided the taint of poor quality. Incidentally, the German industry also had union troubles many years ago but I think dealt with them rather better than the British did.
The Japanese industry never seemed to go for quality inspectors in the same way as the Germans or British but every worker was his (or her) own inspector. If something is wrong with a part you're making you don't pass it down to the next bloke, you only pass on what's good enough.
As for British Leyland (and its predecessors) I don't think there was any one cause of its troubles. Some of the products were good, at least in theory. But the good products had to soldier on when they should have been updated or replaced. Management often seemed clueless; selling your two most popular products (Mini and BMC 1100/1300) at a loss is something that defies belief. But it seems that the starting price for the Mini was chosen simply to undercut the Ford Anglia.
In export markets the British (including UK-assembled Fords) damaged their own reputation, especially in the USA, by building cars that not only broke down but then the dealers and importers never had the right spares in stock so it took weeks or months for replacements to be shipped over. IIRC Volkswagen used to insist that each dealer stocked a generous parts inventory before they were given a single car to sell (not something you could do now, I accept).
It is a shame that there is no large-scale indigenous motor industry in the UK any more. But there are times when the industry seemed bent on self-destruction.
robinessex said:
There was nothing wrong with the engineering design of BL cars, infact, many of them were brilliant. Unfortunately, the complete useless management flatly refused to invest in decent production lines, and the rot set in. Car assembly workers saw this, as well as being treated as slave labour. So the rot set in. Loud mouth commie type bullies got into power in the unions, and we all know the rest. JCB saw all this, and invested well, treated their workers as human beings. When the unions arrived to unionise the factory, JCB let them loose. They came back with their tails between their legs when the workers told them to f
k off.
Precisely.k off.I spoke to someone who had been involved on the Board of Trade in the Seventies recently, and he reckoned that the problems that killed the British-owned motor industry began not in the Seventies, but in the Sixties.
We'd put some truly excellent cars out in the Forties and Fifties - the Morris Minor, Land-Rover, Jaguar XK120, Triumph TRs and MGA to name a few, plus one or two quiet success stories like the Vauxhall Victor F-type, which was one of the biggest-selling cars in the world in the Fifties.
Thing was, we produced those cars when the rest of the world was on its knees and the previous cars that anyone had bought were designed in the Thirties. Attlee's 'export or die' drive acted as a Darwinian force on the motor industry, and from 1948 especially we were producing world-beating designs. Not just cars either - the Vincent Black Shadow, generally considered to be the world's first superbike, dates from 1948 too.
And then, we had the misfortune to get complacent right just when the rest of the world was doing the same, only a generation later with more advanced technology. The pre-common market gave the UK economic protection for a while, but as soon as these advanced modern cars came on th market, ours were toast.
I'm talking about the rose-tinted Sixties here, not the much-demonised Seventies. All those family cars we were running around in, not just from BMC, but Rootes, Ford, Triumph etc often had underpinnings that dated back twenty years. They were well-made and the foreign opposition with its DOHC engines, proper heaters and double-wishbone suspension was too expensive to make much of a dent in our domestic car sales. But the point is, no-one noticed how crap the average family car was in the Sixties because they'd never tried anything better.
However, it was because the management had failed to invest in R&D in the Sixties that joining the EEC Common Market and facing the Japanese Economic Miracle head-on that we ended up selling rubbish in the Seventies. Suddenly all these innovative, well-priced cars free of economic protectionism rocked up on our soil and made our cars look overpriced and badly made.
So, our car firms started losing money, they couldn't pay the workers sufficiently well, the workers knew they were building cars to poor designs, and so they went on strike. OK, so the unions started taking the piss later on, but I'm talking about the early Seventies, not the Winter of Discontent. The damage was done far earlier.
This guy I spoke to told me about one Triumph motorbike engineer who'd got a close look at a new Honda CB750 while on holiday in France, jotted down its specifications, and presented it to the board.
Their response was along the lines of 'do you have any idea how expensive it'd be to tool up to make something like this? Leave the decision-making to us in future!'
It was this sort of thinking across the board that was the problem. It was 'what we've got is fine, that foreign stuff is too expensive and complicated and we'll never make a profit on it.'
Truth is, that 'foreign stuff' was better-designed and better-made, and once these innovations were productionised they could be built cost-effectively as well.
So what killed the British-owned car industry was nothing to do with the Seventies. The Seventies was the industry in crisis running around wondering how to put out the fire. The crisis actually began quietly in the Sixties, when management saw that business was good, discounted any threats from beyond the water, and decided to put its feet up.
Nowadays we make more cars per year than we did back then. Contrary to popular opinion, we make high-quality family stuff too, not just low-volume sports cars and handbuilt luxury saloons. In Triumph we also have a motorbike company easily the equal of any one of the Italian or Japanese giants.
However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German. In short, the nations who didn't put their feet up and assume they'd got everything right in the Sixties. The nations who had a hard time selling cars over here in the Sixties not only because import barriers made them expensive, but also because of the what-they-did-in-the-war prejudice of the UK buyer at the time.
They had the last laugh. Thankfully, the Germans and Japanese also recognised that it wasn't the fault of the British worker, who can build a car to the highest standards in the world, so they harnessed this fact, and now some of the world's most reliable cars are made in Britain.
Unfortunately, they leave their respective factories wearing Japanese badges.
Twincam16 said:
This guy I spoke to told me about one Triumph motorbike engineer who'd got a close look at a new Honda CB750 while on holiday in France, jotted down its specifications, and presented it to the board.
Their response was along the lines of 'do you have any idea how expensive it'd be to tool up to make something like this? Leave the decision-making to us in future!'
As someone who both drove and rode in the late fifties and 1960s, I can confirm the UK Motor Cycle enthusiasts were crying out for a transverse four cylinder motor cycle having seen the magnificent Italian "Fire Engine" Gilera and MV-Agusta "fours" performing in the Isle-of-Man TT_Races. A certain Soichiro Honda observed and noted this when he, along with his Nikons and a shed load of films, visited the TT-Races in the 1950s. He listened and within ten years, along came the CB750 "four" and the rest is history. I even bought a four cylindered new Honda back then as well as a new Triumph. Wish I still had them and a few others. Their response was along the lines of 'do you have any idea how expensive it'd be to tool up to make something like this? Leave the decision-making to us in future!'
Mr. Honda listened and learned well.Then set to work. Went back to Japan and UK management did not listen.
Back in the 1970s, my nationwide firm where I was employed in middle management brought in some highly regarded whizz kid. He had been reasonably successful in another area of commerce although took the acclaim and credit which his employees lower down the ranks really deserved. At a management meeting, I suggested some short and longer term plans and he, along with various yes-men, poo-pooed my ideas. I expressed my displeasure and decided to look elsewhere for a career. I made this known to some of my fellow workers. Got a phone call from one of them who had learned that the decision makers decided "Where would John get another good job like this" and so took no action. Soon after I resigned. Not only that, within two years, two of my poo-pooed ideas were implemented and guess who took the credit for that!
A few years later, I told my line managers I was unhappy with the way things were NOT going and if they would not do anything about the situation, I shall seek my fortunes elsewhere. Again I learned they though "Where would John get a job like this" Scenario.
Three times something like that happened to me in my fifty-one years of employment. Two of those firms approached me later in my new jobs, offered my old position back with both higher status and far better remuneration package. What would you do? I politely declined ... again they were visibly surprised by my stance.
I have never been a member of any Union, even though there were times when their advice on employment law would be beneficial to me. It is an 'easy meat' target to blame everything on the twisted values of some of the Unions and their actions or, more correctly their leaders, but the real hub of the problem lies elsewhere.
This thread kicked off with a fictitious film about UK Industry. Here's an even better clip from one. Fiction too but, there is always some truth on either side with such fiction. Enjoy ... and do not take it too seriously. It's not a matter of life and death of a nation, it's far more important than that ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9OAvqyjn0
Honda's design was good, Hopwood's modular concept was revolutionary, did he really put it forward in 1948?
Another "what if" British design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBg86bjr8l0
Another "what if" British design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBg86bjr8l0
McSam said:
You kind of miss the point (and your shift key, that was quite a mission to read).
The sort of issue you highlight with modern German and Japanese cars are caused by engineering problems - somebody misjudged the endurance strength of a component, or a potential issue that comes up in real service was not considered in testing, so stuff breaks. It went wrong at design stage, but was built exactly as specified and with very high precision. The quality of that particular part was faultless, as in it was made to spec, it just wasn't designed right.
BL was the absolute opposite, some good design work being done, but the line workers flatly refused to put anything together properly. Had BL's designs been put together by a 70s Japanese workforce, who were paid (as is usual there) on the basis of company profits and had a strong partnership, they'd turn out pretty good. As it was, the workmanship was horrendous so no matter how good the cars were supposed to be, they ended up pieces of crap.
What point did i miss?? your first point suggests that because it was a design fault then it,s ok, well that must be a big releif to many bmw diesel/mazda owners who have shelled out huge sums of money on repairs, the point is that it matters not a jot wether it,s poor workmanship or design or whatever to the punter, to him/her, it,s just a bad car. Your second paragraph you say "line workers flatly refused to put anything together properly" thats a pretty sweeping statement, "workmanship was horrendous" was it really hmmm. why did you not suggest that the german design was horrendous, or why the germans flatly refused to design it correctly. i think that there is no one reason as to why the british car industry declined when it did, british leyland cars were never as bad as the media suggested, ford, vauxhall, citreon, renault, fiat etc were no better or worse, going back to my point regarding knocking british leyland cars, the press loved to castigate the car industry and the shop floor, remember comparisions in the press ie. BL car worker produces x amount of cars pa, japanese car worker produces xxxxxx amount of cars pa, the old saying has a ring of truth, "never let the truth get in the way of a good story"The sort of issue you highlight with modern German and Japanese cars are caused by engineering problems - somebody misjudged the endurance strength of a component, or a potential issue that comes up in real service was not considered in testing, so stuff breaks. It went wrong at design stage, but was built exactly as specified and with very high precision. The quality of that particular part was faultless, as in it was made to spec, it just wasn't designed right.
BL was the absolute opposite, some good design work being done, but the line workers flatly refused to put anything together properly. Had BL's designs been put together by a 70s Japanese workforce, who were paid (as is usual there) on the basis of company profits and had a strong partnership, they'd turn out pretty good. As it was, the workmanship was horrendous so no matter how good the cars were supposed to be, they ended up pieces of crap.
Twincam16 said:
Nowadays we make more cars per year than we did back then. Contrary to popular opinion, we make high-quality family stuff too, not just low-volume sports cars and handbuilt luxury saloons. In Triumph we also have a motorbike company easily the equal of any one of the Italian or Japanese giants.
However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German.
The significant common factor is that the currently successful factories, both car and bike, are newly built. They aren't trying to make do with old fashioned and inconveniently sprawling complexes.However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German.
Is Triumph management really predominantly foreign?
Dr Jekyll said:
Twincam16 said:
Nowadays we make more cars per year than we did back then. Contrary to popular opinion, we make high-quality family stuff too, not just low-volume sports cars and handbuilt luxury saloons. In Triumph we also have a motorbike company easily the equal of any one of the Italian or Japanese giants.
However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German.
The significant common factor is that the currently successful factories, both car and bike, are newly built. They aren't trying to make do with old fashioned and inconveniently sprawling complexes.However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German.
Is Triumph management really predominantly foreign?
However, John Bloor was primarily an engineer, and revived the Triumph name knowing he wouldn't make a substantial profit for at least a decade, so was the opposite of most British manufacturing managers in the Seventies, more interested in short-term profits and opportunities for costcutting than actually allowing products to be built that people actually wanted to buy.
I owned an MG ZR was a good little car for the price at £1450 however when you see what they cost new they were overpriced tat to be honest as had a lot of compromises for a 2005 car.
British car industry failed because we made cars that could not compete simple as I don't understand why people have to buy a car from there home country when they are better ones on the market. The only reason I purchased my british car is due to the fact it was the best thing I could afford at the time.
Only good thing to come out of BL was the mini and to be honest even by then it was getting a bit dated and this is coming from a mini fanatic. Everyone goes on about the handling but to be honest my Mk5 1.25 Fiesta I owned would have run rings around my mini and was nearly as fun to drive. The metro/allego/maestro was st. Rover 75 was a decent car I admit that same for the ZT. The ZS was a good drive but the styling was terrible, ride was a bit firm and the interior was just so awful for a nigh on 20k car. As a used £2k bargain they now make great sense and can see why people buy them but when you consider the cost new and the rivals such as the type r etc... it is easy to see why they failed.
Same for BL see people saying they were decent cars if rust proof them all the time and service them a lot etc... but why the fk would you go to all that effort when you could just buy a japanese car and just stick petrol in it. The BL cars were unreliable and average joe is just concerned about that doesnt matter if they had good features they all generally had st build quality BL were aware of this and did nothing to rectify it so the company deserved to fail. Look how well Jagauar and Landrover are doing now they are properly managed and are paying close attention to quality it was our fault at the end of the day...
British car industry failed because we made cars that could not compete simple as I don't understand why people have to buy a car from there home country when they are better ones on the market. The only reason I purchased my british car is due to the fact it was the best thing I could afford at the time.
Only good thing to come out of BL was the mini and to be honest even by then it was getting a bit dated and this is coming from a mini fanatic. Everyone goes on about the handling but to be honest my Mk5 1.25 Fiesta I owned would have run rings around my mini and was nearly as fun to drive. The metro/allego/maestro was s
t. Rover 75 was a decent car I admit that same for the ZT. The ZS was a good drive but the styling was terrible, ride was a bit firm and the interior was just so awful for a nigh on 20k car. As a used £2k bargain they now make great sense and can see why people buy them but when you consider the cost new and the rivals such as the type r etc... it is easy to see why they failed. Same for BL see people saying they were decent cars if rust proof them all the time and service them a lot etc... but why the f
k would you go to all that effort when you could just buy a japanese car and just stick petrol in it. The BL cars were unreliable and average joe is just concerned about that doesnt matter if they had good features they all generally had st build quality BL were aware of this and did nothing to rectify it so the company deserved to fail. Look how well Jagauar and Landrover are doing now they are properly managed and are paying close attention to quality it was our fault at the end of the day...Edited by greggy50 on Tuesday 4th June 12:02
greggy50 said:
I owned an MG ZR was a good little car for the price at £1450 however when you see what they cost new they were overpriced tat to be honest as had a lot of compromises for a 2005 car.
British car industry failed because we made cars that could not compete simple as I don't understand why people have to buy a car from there home country when they are better ones on the market. The only reason I purchased my british car is due to the fact it was the best thing I could afford at the time.
Only good thing to come out of BL was the mini and to be honest even by then it was getting a bit dated and this is coming from a mini fanatic. Everyone goes on about the handling but to be honest my Mk5 1.25 Fiesta I owned would have run rings around my mini and was nearly as fun to drive. The metro/allego/maestro was st. Rover 75 was a decent car I admit that same for the ZT. The ZR was a good drive but the styling was terrible, ride was a bit firm and the interior was just so awful for a nigh on 20k car. As a used £2k bargain they now make great sense and can see why people buy them but when you consider the cost new and the rivals such as the type r etc... it is easy to see why they failed.
Same for BL see people saying they were decent cars if rust proof them all the time and service them a lot etc... but why the fk would you go to all that effort when you could just buy a japanese car and just stick petrol in it. The BL cars were unreliable and average joe is just concerned about that doesnt matter if they had good features they all generally had st build quality BL were aware of this and did nothing to rectify it so the company deserved to fail. Look how well Jagauar and Landrover are doing now they are properly managed and are paying close attention to quality it was our fault at the end of the day...
Very accurate post. Bloody Awful products. I have fond memories of the brand new maxi that only just breached the end of the one year factory warranty before grenading it's engine having covered a pitiful 21,000 miles. I also subsequently spent many many wonderful hours trying to make good various mechanical and corrosion maladies that were so obhorrent in BL's various underachieving offerings. Don't even get me started on the electrics....British car industry failed because we made cars that could not compete simple as I don't understand why people have to buy a car from there home country when they are better ones on the market. The only reason I purchased my british car is due to the fact it was the best thing I could afford at the time.
Only good thing to come out of BL was the mini and to be honest even by then it was getting a bit dated and this is coming from a mini fanatic. Everyone goes on about the handling but to be honest my Mk5 1.25 Fiesta I owned would have run rings around my mini and was nearly as fun to drive. The metro/allego/maestro was s
t. Rover 75 was a decent car I admit that same for the ZT. The ZR was a good drive but the styling was terrible, ride was a bit firm and the interior was just so awful for a nigh on 20k car. As a used £2k bargain they now make great sense and can see why people buy them but when you consider the cost new and the rivals such as the type r etc... it is easy to see why they failed. Same for BL see people saying they were decent cars if rust proof them all the time and service them a lot etc... but why the f
k would you go to all that effort when you could just buy a japanese car and just stick petrol in it. The BL cars were unreliable and average joe is just concerned about that doesnt matter if they had good features they all generally had st build quality BL were aware of this and did nothing to rectify it so the company deserved to fail. Look how well Jagauar and Landrover are doing now they are properly managed and are paying close attention to quality it was our fault at the end of the day...Edited by Cerbieherts on Tuesday 4th June 13:12
williamp said:
Only good car was the mini? What about the range rover, land rover, xj12, xj6, dolomite sprint, rover sd1
Some manufacturers have only just caught up to what the original range rover is capable of.
And the japanese cars and bmw etc all rusted to the same extent as the bl cars.
Rover SD1 had flaws, the original range rover is a really great car but they are not exactly the pinnacle of reliability are they which is the problem!Some manufacturers have only just caught up to what the original range rover is capable of.
And the japanese cars and bmw etc all rusted to the same extent as the bl cars.
BL made a few good cars in cases and then cut silly corners at the end and ruined them along with the image of the brand due to s
t management. Near enough every car produced you can point out cost cutting features that make the car slightly worse which is why I said the mini as they didn't change anything as they had been built down to a price since day one so they couldn't really ruin it...Don't think the japannese cars rusted as badly myself and they were a damm more reliable. BL just as an exercise was a joke and the management killed it any good cars were ruined by poor quality parts or cost cutting and this coupled with the fact the majority of the cars they made were s
t meant as a brand they had a terrible image meaning anything good they did make was pretty much doomed anyway thanks to the public image. It's the collapse of Rover I find more depressing as they did show promise in the 75 and the ZR/ZS where great to drive they just didnt have the funds to sort the interiors out and design a new car due to being f
ked around by past owners which was a shame as given the funds I am sure they had the tallent to design a decent car. BL on the otherhand was far too big had cars in the same group competing with each other which was not managed probably like say VW and just cut far too many corners to be succesful this coupled with countless strikes mean they just deserved to fail.williamp said:
Only good car was the mini? What about the range rover, land rover, xj12, xj6, dolomite sprint, rover sd1
Some manufacturers have only just caught up to what the original range rover is capable of.
And the japanese cars and bmw etc all rusted to the same extent as the bl cars.
The Japanese learnt from their mistakes, meanwhile BL were still selling rotbox Metro's well into the 80's with very few updates to corrosion. My family purchased one new and it was already rusty! After the repaint it was a half decent run around for the time (apart from being very underpowered and having a shocking ride) but then decided to end its life by throwing the plastic speedo drive into the layshaft. TADTS was the response from the apathetic dealers so it was repaired and sold.Some manufacturers have only just caught up to what the original range rover is capable of.
And the japanese cars and bmw etc all rusted to the same extent as the bl cars.
Dolomite Sprints, I have experience with these as well. When setup properly they go well, most are running like bags of crap due to the SU's and let's not mention the cooling system and build quality. Its one of the only cars I can remember that was rated 20% down on its potential outputs because the factory couldn't build the engines to spec. Good cars, s
te workforce. 
yonex said:
<snip>. Good cars, ste workforce.
lack of testicular fortitude from management allows the unions to rule the roost ... te workforce. same is still happening in local government and in places like Royal Mail Group...
the experience of the UK workforces with the japanese manufacturers and even JLR proves this to be the case.
Edited by mph1977 on Tuesday 4th June 14:33
mph1977 said:
yonex said:
<snip>. Good cars, ste workforce.
lack of testicular fortitude from management allows the unions to rule the roost ... te workforce. same is still happening in local government and in places like Royal Mail Group...
the experience of the UK workforces with the japanese manufacturers and even JLR proves this to be the case.
Far too many public sector types cushioned against reality, many with jobs for life, early retirement with good pensions having boosted their final salary and lump sums by various means, fail miserably to appreciate the simple word unsustainable.
Mind you, I'm most certainly in favour of all the necessary cuts just so long as none affect me ...
Hmmm, very interesting reading this thread.
Looks like I alone within the UK car consumer circles have only had very reliable BL 'tat'. Actually my new car purchases of Austins, Morrises, Rovers and MGs goes back long before anyone had ever heard of BL.
In now over fifty three years of car ownership, mostly products of Abingdon, Longbridge and Cowley, I have never had an unreliable product from any of those factories. True mostly company car choices but, about half a dozen own private car purchases, the latest being an MG ZS bought ten years ago last month. Still a very good car and cost peanuts to run. Even those MGs and Rovers cars I bought used with 'problems' which defied even expensive professional investigation proved very reliable after I'd given them a wipe over with my oily rag ... So, who to blame ... yeah, it must be the car. Stands to reason. Well known fact.
Mind you, the new MG I bought on 1st Jan.1983 started to fall to pieces soon after ... its fifteenth birthday! My life long friend questioned my judgement back then suggesting I'd merely bought a 'tarted up' Metro. I tossed him the keys and we took a ride ... A few days later he took delivery of a Black one. One registration number higher than mine.
A year or two older and far wiser than I back then, like most he did not know it all and actually had a change of mindset as soon as he drove my MG Metro. Thirty years ago they sold like hot cakes and justifiably so.
Funny old game folks and their cars. Plenty of evidence of that even on this thread ...
Looks like I alone within the UK car consumer circles have only had very reliable BL 'tat'. Actually my new car purchases of Austins, Morrises, Rovers and MGs goes back long before anyone had ever heard of BL.
In now over fifty three years of car ownership, mostly products of Abingdon, Longbridge and Cowley, I have never had an unreliable product from any of those factories. True mostly company car choices but, about half a dozen own private car purchases, the latest being an MG ZS bought ten years ago last month. Still a very good car and cost peanuts to run. Even those MGs and Rovers cars I bought used with 'problems' which defied even expensive professional investigation proved very reliable after I'd given them a wipe over with my oily rag ...
So, who to blame ... yeah, it must be the car. Stands to reason. Well known fact.Mind you, the new MG I bought on 1st Jan.1983 started to fall to pieces soon after ... its fifteenth birthday! My life long friend questioned my judgement back then suggesting I'd merely bought a 'tarted up' Metro. I tossed him the keys and we took a ride ...
A few days later he took delivery of a Black one. One registration number higher than mine. 
A year or two older and far wiser than I back then, like most he did not know it all and actually had a change of mindset as soon as he drove my MG Metro. Thirty years ago they sold like hot cakes and justifiably so.
Funny old game folks and their cars. Plenty of evidence of that even on this thread ...
MGJohn said:
mph1977 said:
yonex said:
<snip>. Good cars, ste workforce.
lack of testicular fortitude from management allows the unions to rule the roost ... te workforce. same is still happening in local government and in places like Royal Mail Group...
the experience of the UK workforces with the japanese manufacturers and even JLR proves this to be the case.
Far too many public sector types cushioned against reality, many with jobs for life, early retirement with good pensions having boosted their final salary and lump sums by various means, fail miserably to appreciate the simple word unsustainable.
Mind you, I'm most certainly in favour of all the necessary cuts just so long as none affect me ...
Dr Jekyll said:
Twincam16 said:
Nowadays we make more cars per year than we did back then. Contrary to popular opinion, we make high-quality family stuff too, not just low-volume sports cars and handbuilt luxury saloons. In Triumph we also have a motorbike company easily the equal of any one of the Italian or Japanese giants.
However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German.
The significant common factor is that the currently successful factories, both car and bike, are newly built. They aren't trying to make do with old fashioned and inconveniently sprawling complexes.However, what's telling is that in each case, the management is foreign, predominantly Japanese and German.
Is Triumph management really predominantly foreign?
.
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