But to a seemingly odd place in Greensburg Ind? I wonder why they didn't choose South Bend or Ft. Wayne or some place else in Northern Indiana. Why build it way out in the sticks. Seems like infrastructure, pretrained workforce, close to national transportation, closer to Chicago, etc all would have favored Northern Indiana. Sid? Whobe? Honda comes to Greensburg
The southeast area of the state (between Indy and Cincinnati) is in dire need of an economic boost. PLUS....it's non-union country. Same with the huge Toyota light truck plant north of Evansville. The only exception would be a big foreign mfr. (Mazda? Isuzu?) plant near Lafayette in the NW central part of the state. The northern half of the state above Indy remains closely tied to the Big Three in terms of manufacturing and labor unions. It's only a guess on my part, but I'm pretty sure the foreign manufacturers want to stay away from union country. Honda certainly is going into virgin territory in terms of manufacturing. They will draw from the Cincinnati area as well as Indy for their labor pool. I can't stand our wimp governor, but he certainly scored a coup with this huge announcement on his watch.
"PLUS....it's non-union country. " Now you're getting it. Someone here was singing the praises of all that dandy employment being offered up by foreign car manufacturers and I stated it might be better than working in the one Walmart and/or gas station within 20 miles of a locale but it does not represent gainful employment for those unfortunates who for some reason many years ago made decisions that job opportunities were better near major cities.
It's my understanding that the wages and benefits at the non-union auto plants are pretty good. Plus you have the comfort of knowing that you're working for a progressive and highly thought of company whose automobiles are ranked at or near the top. Ain't all bad...
The number I've heard for an hourly wage at the new Honda plant is $24.00/hour, and it's reasonable to assume that the benefits would be at least consistent with today's norms. If that is true, it's not bad for "non-union" work. On the other end of the spectrum is Anderson, Indiana, a depressed "union" community that once was a hotbed of GM production. I work with the school district in that community. There are several empty GM plants dotting the landscape. There are hundreds and hundreds of GM retirees who are concerned about the future of their retirement benefits. Despite all this, there remains a union mentality that pervades the community and causes employees to expect to be handed much more in wages and benefits than is warranted by the type of work available. This mentality slowly is giving way to the realities of today's economy, but it still exists. Terry, perhaps this is why the foreign auto manufacturers are avoiding communities like anderson.
Sid, not bad is right. The average hourly wage for ALL workers - including mangerial/executive - in the US is $18.81/hour. A wage that is 28% above average is not bad at all....by way of comparison, the average hourly wage for a production worker in the US is $19.40. Terry