Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning January 2007 » DCX to build new Axle Plant « Previous Next »
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Ltdave
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Username: Ltdave

Post Number: 43
Registered: 09-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 8:50 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

read in yesterdays News, that DCX is planning a new Axle plant to be built in Marysville...

upto 900 current employees will be eligible to transfer there from the current Lynch Road located Detroit Axle Plant...

while its not good that Detroit would be losing another auto manufacturing plant it is a BOON for me (if i can get transferred there). i live 8 miles from there vs the 55 miles to the DCX Tool and Die Plant on Outer Dr and Mt Elliot...

it will be an MOA plant (modern operating agreement) where there is more of a Team Mentality and fewer job classifications...

i love the history and the culture and the architecture of Detroit but if i can cut my commmute down, im all over it...

david
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1953
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Username: 1953

Post Number: 1351
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 8:55 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You are the sole reason for Detroit's decline.
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Stecks77
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Username: Stecks77

Post Number: 343
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 9:26 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

agreed
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Johnnny5
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Username: Johnnny5

Post Number: 494
Registered: 06-2005
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 10:44 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hope everything works out for you. What a nice change that would be not having to spend 8-10 hours per week driving, and with the price of gas it would be like getting a raise as well.
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Charlottepaul
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Username: Charlottepaul

Post Number: 797
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 11:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Where is Marysville? I know that it isn't even suburban Detroit, because I haven't been out of the area for but 7 months. Doesn't seem like it would have that much impact on the Detroit economy.
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 944
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 11:39 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's on the St. Clair River.
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Aiw
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Username: Aiw

Post Number: 6239
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 1:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hey charlottepaul, try this brand new technology, it will show you exactly where places are...
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Peter
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Username: Peter

Post Number: 38
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 4:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

1953, that is an idiotic comment to make. The sole reason for the decline of the city? Give me a break...
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Zephyrprocess
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Username: Zephyrprocess

Post Number: 337
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 4:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Peter, are the <sarcasm> tags not rendering in your browser?
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Milwaukee
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Username: Milwaukee

Post Number: 1218
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 4:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That's a huge ass commute!
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Kslice
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Username: Kslice

Post Number: 7
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 5:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Too bad they have to get rid of a plant they expanded only 6 years ago! Proves companies aren't willing to stay with Detroit if people aren't.
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 945
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 5:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Proves companies aren't willing to stay with Detroit if people aren't."

I doubt this had anything to do with people moving out of Detroit. DCX simply judges Maryville to be a more profitable location for the plant. Marysville probably has lower taxes, and it affords the opportunity to design and build from the ground up a state-of-the-art, efficient factory on some easy to develop greenfield.
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Mikem
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Username: Mikem

Post Number: 3263
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 5:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Do they still own the export warehouse in Marysville?
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 3050
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 6:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Michigan's a big state. Why does everything have to be within a stone's throw of Detroit--which is becoming more and more insignificant anyway as time marches on?

Besides, even Detroit's pioneer automakers were moving out of Detroit since day one. Wonder how Olds got to Lansing in the first place...

(Message edited by LivernoisYard on April 17, 2007)
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Jjaba
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Username: Jjaba

Post Number: 5228
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 6:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This sounds like the same labor rules as the Dundee, Michigan Chrysler engine plant.

One interersting concept is to build parts from suppliers under the same roof. So you've got several employers running factory under the same roof and no UAW contracts getting in the way.

So sweepers and cooks, security guards, and mnay others don't have to be in the ONE BIG UNION. Those days are long gone.

At the Georgetown, KY Toyota plant, about 80 minutes before a seat is needed on the final assembly line, an order is placed with the seat supplier, a subcontractor on premises. The seat is being made as the car is being assembled and arrives JOT on the other side of the same plant.

jjaba, carshop John.
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Urbanize
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Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 912
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 7:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"You are the sole reason for Detroit's decline."

Oh wow, very harsh. The people on Yahoo Answers are the sole reason because they recommended a person to gamble in Windsor and stay at a 'Tel in Novi AND he did!

(Message edited by Urbanize on April 17, 2007)
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 946
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 7:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Livernoisyard wrote, "...even Detroit's pioneer automakers were moving out of Detroit since day one. Wonder how Olds got to Lansing in the first place"

Olds was born in Ohio, moved to Lansing and eventually began building cars there. He later moved operations to Detroit but soon moved them back to Lansing after a fire (and a package of incentives offered by Lansing's business community).
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 3052
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 10:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Face it! Sprawl was the name of the game for the entire Metro Detroit auto industry. Why not? If not for sprawl, Detroit would never have been some 2 million people at one time in its glorious past. Detroit could have ended at Clark Street or the Boulevard, for that matter, if that would please the New Urbanists and their B-O-R-I-N-G sprawl bellyaches and neurotic outbreaks.

Why build new, expensive auto factories on occupied and expensive real estate? The vacant (farm)land in the outer parts of Detroit were first to go after Highland Park and Hamtramck (both suburbs themselves, BTW).

Then Dearborn and the other burbs were next, and the plants continued moving further out until the expansion bubble burst in the auto industry a few decades ago. That's called a boom--something that virtually every sane community would desire. But not Detroit's latest generation, apparently. Or maybe they're pissed that the world moved on without them and their sage advice...

And quite naturally, new arrivals and descendants of the first boom-period generation moved out too. It's all so easy to comprehend that it's essentially a combination of intuition or common sense to figure this out. Hardly rocket sci.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 286
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 11:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Remember also that Marysville is a suburb of Port Huron, another old-time manufacturing town. Port Huron, a city of about 30,000 people, has lost 5,000 manufacturing jobs in the past six years. That would be the equivalent of the City of Detroit (assuming the current population to be about 850,000) losing 140,000 jobs, which is just about the entire downtown employment, or the Detroit tri-county metro losing 750,000 jobs.

So 900 new jobs in the Port Huron area is just a little band-aid covering the local hemhorrage.

Anyhow, it's more or less part of the same region (I commute from St. Clair County to Wayne County, for example) and we are all feeling the same pain. They could have moved to Smyrna, or Mexico, or Chile.
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Warrenite84
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Username: Warrenite84

Post Number: 77
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 3:06 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's sad to see Detroit Axle go. I worked there from 1993 to 2000. The old section of the plant I worked in was in rough shape.

Lots of stories in that place. The roof leaked in many spots, the windows that ran along the upper part of the bays didn't close right and let drafts and snow in. Floors were so oily that hi-lows spun their wheels. When the plant was closed up in the winter, the cutting fluids would create a haze so you could hardly see the other side of the plant. Metallic dust was always in the air. In the summer,( no AC), it would get into the upper 90's to 100+ degrees. The sunlight would heat up those castings and they would radiate heat. Fans all blew hot air.

Cars were always getting stolen out of the parking lot.They would dump off a junk van and roll out with an employee's brand new conversion van.

The workers were generally good people but it was like a soap opera in fast-forward there.

I hope those who won't get to go to the new facility can find spots at other plants.
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Why
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Username: Why

Post Number: 4
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 4:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Too late.
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 3053
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 4:48 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

So what was the real reason for DCX to close such a modern plant like Detroit Axle? Was it poorly designed? Too small? Work rules problems with the UAW? In 2003, DCX and the UAW didn't see eye-to-eye about this plant while they finally closed McGraw Glass.

Detroit Axle was one of the early plants with the UAW two-tier wage schedule whereby new hires started out at around $13 or $14/hr in contrast to older workers at the same plant making twice that doing the same work. There were rumors of labor discord among the UAW workers themselves.

Where is Paul Harvey with his rest of the story when we need him?

The Freep had this to say two months ago:
quote:

'07 looks critical for UAW

Analyst: Workers may have to give up more to keep jobs

February 21, 2007

BY KATIE MERX and TIM HIGGINS

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERS

Huge pay cuts at Ford.

GM shifting production to Mexico.

Chrysler expanding on its week-old turnaround plan.

It's no secret that Detroit automakers are expected to push for significant changes in UAW wages and benefits in the contract being negotiated this year.

But one of the nation's top auto economists raised eyebrows Tuesday among his industry colleagues when he suggested that hourly workers may have to give up more than ever before to protect U.S. assembly jobs.

Speaking to auto industry and regional representatives Tuesday morning in Ypsilanti, Sean McAlinden, the chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said the Detroit auto industry is in its darkest days and that decisions made in the contract being negotiated this year will go a long way to determining how and where the Detroit automakers do business.

Automotive analysts disagreed on some of McAlinden's predictions.

But on the heels of what could be the first year since 1991 that all the Detroit automakers lost money, UAW mid-contract concessions and buyouts became a reality and Toyota workers in Kentucky made more than the average UAW member, the idea is gaining momentum that the very nature of the contract between the UAW and Detroit's auto industry is set to change this year.

Among McAlinden's comments considered most controversial by other analysts were the predictions that:

• Ford Motor Co. may ask the UAW to cut wages and benefits by 20% in the upcoming contract.

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Cambrian
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Username: Cambrian

Post Number: 1000
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 8:03 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

At least DCX is keeping everything in Michigan. However, I find it hard to believe the Mayor's office could not convince them to stay. As far as greenfields go, you drive around the city lately? There are lots of parcels now where a new factory could get built. The grounds of the old hudson plant right across the street from Jefferson North comes to mind.
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 948
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 8:13 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The grounds of the old Hudson plant do not constitute a greenfield! God knows what kind of contamination and crap they'd have to haul out of there while excavating for a new factory. I know that cleanup rules aren't as stringent for new industry as they are for residences, but it's still a no-brainer why DCX would choose a probably pristine site instead of a city brownfield.
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Cambrian
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Username: Cambrian

Post Number: 1002
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 8:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That's true. To the best of my knowledge, the rules are if you are developing a factory on the grounds of an old factory, no clean up is required. It's a different story of course if you are building a subdivision or school there.
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Andyguard73
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Username: Andyguard73

Post Number: 231
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 9:06 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Professor Scott makes some great points about the the state of the things in northern St. Clair County. There are a lot of issues in the City of Port Huron right now, including:

* The state trying to take up 80 acres in the middle of the city for a half-billion dollar bridge plaza. (roughly 300 million for the plaza, 150 for infrastructure on 69/94 leading up to it.
http://www.breitbart.com/artic le.php?id=cp_u12019A.xml&show_ article=1

* The city is saddled with a 180 million dollar, 15 year infrastructure project now in its 10th year (I think) that was mandated by the state. It's a sewer separation project that has included the rebuilding of most of the city's roads. The city has been paying for it by increasing the water rates. Unfortunately, as Professor Scott pointed out, we've lost many jobs in the industrial sector. An effect of the closings of these plants, which the city never anticipated, is that the industrial water usage, which makes up a huge chunk of water use in the city, has dropped by more than 50 percent. At the same we were receiving about a million a year from the state, which has stopped giving us that money due to their own budget crisis. So long story short. Unless we find ways to pay for the project, which is again state mandated, the city will be bankrupt in 5 years. This is an absolutely huge crisis.
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/spe cials/stateofmichigan_article. aspx?storyid=72387

* Finally the unemployment rate is, as Professor Scott said, very high. The county's unemployment rate is at 8.2% and the city's is sitting at around 18%. "Cummings said he estimates Port Huron's true unemployment rate at 18%. That includes people who have run out of unemployment benefits and are no longer counted in the government's jobless rate calculation." -the Times Herald.

Really, and I do apologize for such a long winded post, the news of this factory opening in the area is the first positive economic news in Port Huron in a long, long time, and I'm thrilled for the whole Blue Water Area. This certainly won't solve any of the huge problems plaguing the city, but at least offers some hope.

http://www.thetimesherald.com/ apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200 70418/NEWS01/704180301

(Message edited by andyguard73 on April 18, 2007)
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Warrenite84
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Username: Warrenite84

Post Number: 78
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 12:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detroit Axle is in an Empowerment Zone. They must have exhausted their tax benefits staying there, and are looking for greener pastures.

IMO, factories in Detroit contemplating new facilities, should be able to buy city owned brownfield sites for cheap. In return, a long term commitment be required.

It looks like they decided to do the Marysville Project before informing the Mayor.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 287
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 12:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Anybody know how to get a hold of the UAW at Detroit Axle, local 961 I think it is? If some of those folks are going to be working in St. Clair County, it might be nice if we (St. Clair County government people, of which I am one, unpaid) could do a presentation about the area so people can decide whether they want to commute to Marysville or live closer in, where the shopping and churches are, those sorts of things.

Just to help the folks who will be making the transition.

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