Whirlpool Will Close US Plant in June; Send Jobs to Mexico

Oops ! There goes another one ( or another 1100 ) !

Whirlpool Corporation is shutting down a refrigerator plant in Evansville, Indiana that will put 1100 people out of work. Are they having trouble selling refrigerators in these bad economic times? No. Whirlpool is profitable and still selling plenty of refrigerators here. But they want to ship these jobs to Mexico where they can produce them cheaper and without having to respect U.S. labor and environmental regulations. Whirlpool took $19 million in economic recovery money and now instead of helping our economy recover, it?s destroying 1100 good American jobs. The AFL-CIO has started an online petition drive telling Whirlpool to ?Keep It Made In America? to save our jobs. You can find it at unionvoice.org/campaign/Evansville The AFL-CIO says Whirlpool should reverse its decision to keep these 1100 jobs in the U.S. and help our economic recovery. The labor federation says taxpayer economic recovery money should be used to create jobs in America, not ship them to cheap labor markets in other countries.

Reply to
.p.jm.
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Are you sure about Mexico? More likely, it is Communist China.

A couple of months ago, we were looking for a washer and drier replacement - which had to be the same physical size as the old standard machines. (Not those stainless steel, or colorfully-painted tall $1200 front-loader boxes with all of the Chinese-made built-in problems ensuring it won't last a year before requiring $500 worth of new parts . . .)

It turns out that you can't buy an American-made washer or dryer anymore; all of the old-favorite American brand names (even mighty Maytag) have been sold off to Chinese factories.

Oh, they look pretty much the same - and checking "underneath the hood" shows that they were smart enough to follow the old, reliable designs - but the timers, motors, solenoid valves, etc. are clearly inferior Chinese knock-offs.

The biggest difference, though? The sheet metal the Chinese use is real thin, light stuff - making a washer at least a hundred pounds lighter than any old American-made one. I can easily foresee an interior repaint (with brown rust-oleum) within the first two-three years . . . and definitely no climbing on the washer to replace an overhead light: the lid easily flexes inward with just medium hand pressure.

(BTW - it ain't just American companies, either. What used to be good German-made stuff (e.g. - Bosch; Siemens) is made in the same Chinese factories as all the familiar old American brand names. Even the Japanese electronics guys are outsourcing to China these days.)

Reply to
Dweezil Dwarftosser

In order to meet the new sound ratings for dishwashers, Whirpool (Kitchenaid) does it by stuffing a pile of yellow insulation under the dishwasher with a strong piece of rubber going up the front. That is in place of a quiet motor!!!

Reply to
George Conklin

Quiet motors have better bearings, design, etc, and last a lot longer than noisy motors. Which would cut down on future sales of new units. Can't have THAT, now .....

Reply to
.p.jm.

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