Free PCs Not AfFordable 150
rakerman writes: "Ford Cancels Computer Giveaway Program. I guess their 'Model E' program turned out to be an Edsel." We did at least one story about this at the time (and a Katz essay). A lot of people pointed out that the United Auto Workers union was the driving force (ha-ha) behind this program initially.
sigh... (Score:1)
anyway, they should do more research first.
Basic is used before your learn how to program (Score:1)
how to write programs.
C is still king when not overrun by C++. Most
small embedded processors use C. Only the people
who have no clue about programming use basic.
If you are too scared of C but someday you want to
learn how to program in a real programming
language and at the same time have the benefits
of the visual design use Kylix or Delphi or both.
Why not just make it profitable? (Score:2)
I know people that have it and love it. I'm sure they'd be willing to pay more for it.
Re:They should have used Linux (Score:1)
Re:They should have used Linux (Score:1)
Interesting sidenote:
PeoplePC's stock shot up 27% yesterday!!!
Unfortunately, that's a climb of three cents to $0.14
Re:They should have used Linux (Score:1)
Hm, I thought it was HP. Maybe I'm wrong, or you tried to be funny. Or you did not try to be funny, but are just a moron, or my memory is bad, and I'm the moron.
Re:They should have used Linux (Score:1)
Reading more into this (Score:5, Insightful)
First, giving your staff free PC's isn't enough of a benefit to impress most of your staff. Let's face it, if you're working for a union-driven company like Ford, you're not living on Ramen Noodles, and you can probably afford any one of the dozens of el cheapo PC's being served up for the masses. Most of us would rather be given a credit at Best Buy to purchase the PC we really want, or maybe even peripherals if we already own a PC.
Second, in this economy, employee perks are the last thing from anybody's mind. Ford started this when employees were hard to find. Fast forward to today: due to massive layoffs everywhere, people are much easier to come by, and you don't have to go flashing perks in order to get people on board. Giving stuff away to your staff is an increasingly hard sell to the shareholders.
Third, the shareholders just got informed that they're getting decreased dividends for the first time that I can remember. Ford's always been a dividend-heavy company, and I'm sure it's hard for them to rationalize giving away PCs to their staff when their investors are getting less returns. Giveaways are associated with a dotcom, and typically the giveaways are cut just before the jobs are cut. Look out...
Re:Reading more into this (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not sure what your point is, but I can assure you that the rank-and-file of the union are going to be more than happy to get something like this. I'm just not sure as to how it helps Ford.
You could throw them a donut and there would be a committee call over who should get it
"Ford started this when employees were hard to find."
You're kidding, right? We typically have hundreds of *extremely* hopeful canidates lining up the day before one of our cattle calls (it's not uncommon for them to sleep over in line).
And this is for 5 to 10 jobs.
"Third, the shareholders just got informed that they're getting decreased dividends for the first time that I can remember"
Now this I would agree with.
BTW, we got a sweetheart deal with AOL ($3 a month for the basic service, $5 for cable. Essentually we just pay the tax on the service). Not that I could/would use it since this be a Linux box.
But I think that GM's plan for this is to provide (force?) business services at home to its employees. We will be able to access most if not all of the in plant services from home.
No thanks...
Re:Reading more into this (Score:1)
Another thing too: if someone is an assembly line worker, the most contact they will have with computers would be on the line. (It's not like they're going to telecommute.) So for Ford this cut is a no-brainer.
Actually, I first heard about this (and reported [slashdot.org] it here) last week, and it didn't surprise me in the least. The only bad thing is that this is costing jobs for the people who supported these systems.
Re:Reading more into this (Score:1)
no offense, but wtf are you talking about? 80%+ of the jobs on an automotive assembly line involve using air tools to screw/bolt pieces together. yes, there are lots of computers involved in the factory automation processes, but these generally require no operator intervention. they don't put computers on the factory floor so people can use them. they put them there to eliminate positions.
Re:Reading more into this (Score:2)
Who gets sued when some UAW member's kid wants to play Hard^corE^Haxor, an assemby line worker or Ford Motor Companies deep pockets that originaly bought the machine?
And about the lay-off's, my wife work for a Ford Sub, and she gets laid-off regularly. Files for unemp for 3 days to a week then they work tens for a week to get caught back up! Effectively she's laid-off for a week but only misses 4 hours pay, actualy it pretty sweet. Don't know how they count this stuff statisticaly, does this count as a New Un-Employment Claim for the month, once it happened twice in one month.
Fordism over the Internet ? (Score:2)
Reactions to that statement from computer-savvy Ford employees are probably ranging from "I'm glad they stopped the giveway program" to "what are they smoking ?".
Re:Rolling Over (Score:5, Funny)
Evidently he was buried in an Explorer.
Re:Rolling Over (Score:2)
Let he who is without sin cast the first Firestone.
Re:Rolling Over (Score:1)
It was an idea ahead of its time. (Score:3, Insightful)
What would have been more sensible would have been to provide computer training (like say RedHat certification or something like that), which would actually help the employee progress in their career.
Simply giving them a PC was not a structured approach. My guess is that a lot of these PCs ended up being used for the kids to do their homework on, or more likely to play games.
Ford is right to think of innovative ways to increase computer literacy, but it looks like they didn't put enough thought into the 'Model E' project.
I don't know. (Score:1)
Sure.. they may not be intersted in computers the way some of us geeks are interested in them..
But nowadays.. the Internet has much to offer, whether or not you understand the underlying technology.
Now the rest of the story (Score:1, Informative)
Also, even though HP was supplying the computers, PeoplePC was managing the Model E program (distribution and internet access), and apparently couldn't deliver on their agreement overseas. It seems PeoplePC was overly optimistic in their promises.
Re:Now the rest of the story (Score:1)
There was just this huge disconnect between the top levels and the bottom levels. Once they brought in real managers that had real experience, it got better, but not by much.
Ford Employee (Score:2)
Please see here: http://www.thestreet.com/tech/siliconvalley/10249
This isnt the 'best' description of the situation, but BASICALLY the Ford PeoplePC deal has been a scam from day one.
Ford announced this program internally as an effort to jumpstart the rank-and-file computer knowledge in order to enable the company in the new 'ecommerce' universe (robost-corporate-speak-bullshit). They invested MANY MANY millions into PeoplePC PRIOR to their IPO. PeoplePC, as some of you may rememeber, was basing its business on "we give you PC now for a 36mos. ISP contract" ala Iopener and some others... when the big Dot Bust occured, all these companies started to fail. Ford, having its NUTS in the vice for about $25 Million dollars, Ford volunteered to ENROLL every Ford employee in the PeoplePC program... the cost to Ford directly? Im not sure, maybe something, maybe nothing - frankly I have no reason to believe that it cost Ford ANYTHING to do this, I believe it was an effort to further finance PeoplePC, give them customers (keeping them working/solvent) and give the impression that PeoplePC is a viable business.. remember Ford was in bed w/ PeoplePC pre-IPO... and they had a contract deal to be able to buy another $25M at IPO stock price.
So, basically, when PeoplePC the market ran away from all the DotComs and other fantasy-technology companies, PeoplePC became a worthless company.. they trade at like $0.18 per share.
Ford knows the company is doomed. They are not going to 'throw good money after bad'... they are going to let PeoplePC die.
THIS IS WHY THEY CANCELLED THE PROGRAM
Let me tell you very frankly - there are alot of people at Ford Motor Canada that are VERY VERY ANGRY about this. It could be a very heavy point in the next CAW contract (sept'02)... and the Salary Staff (which I am one of) are VERY aware of what is really taking place... the worst thing in the world is to be this close, this aware to something like this announcment and realize that the company you are working for is a decietfull(sp?) pack of liars.
Read more news (Score:1)
This isn't about a program that doesn't make them money, it's about a new benefit that they just can't afford any more! They've cut out overtime, idled plants and are getting ready to lay off 5000 to 10,000 white collar employees. I'd say this was expendable.
Conspiracy?? (Score:1)
I would rather have free food (Score:1)
Ford then and now (Score:1)
Years later, socialists argue the government should mandate minimum wages and use Ford as an example.
Years later still, Ford starts giving out free computers and virtually free net access.
Prediction: soon, socialists will promote the government give away computers and net access for free, mandated to corporations.
Oh, wait. That happened in a Gore speech about 6 years ago. Nevermind.
Re:no subject (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh wait... they didn't.
They squandered the corporate welfare on bonuses and lobbying, and now we still have a bunch of rusty favtories.
Re:no subject (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:no subject (Score:2)
Re:no subject (Score:2)
And it's certainly not good for the economy (again, long-term) to have huge numbers of people doing what is, essentially, busy-work. Humans are the single most valuable resource a society has, and are far more versatile than any machine yet developed. Human effort shouldn't be waisted on menial tasks. If there are people with no other skills, teach them other skills. Don't make them waste their lives doing things machines could to better, faster and cheaper!
We need our people being productive (Score:2)
However, you understate the problem with busy work.
The United States has the world's largest economy. There are fewer than 300m of us, even with undocumented aliens, etc. We have a young (relative to our history considering life expectancy) retirement age, and a long childhood (mandatory schooling until 16, free schooling until 18, with over half the country going on to further education, 20 or 22), which leaves us with a small work force to push the economy.
During economic crisis, or feared crisis, we shrink the work force (great depression => social security, fear of post-war recession => GI Bill, other pushes for higher education).
During this last boom, wages were spiraling out of control for certain worker groups, which prevented companies from hiring, which likely cut off the boom earlier. Realize that we were PAST full employment... unemployment was lower than economists THOUGHT was possible with normal job switching.
If we can't rotate people into other sectors, our economy is going to peter out.
We need a system to HELP transition people. People replaced by technology need a system for:
A) training
B) maintaining their lifestyle during the transition
I normally don't like government programs, but I can see good reasons for federalizing this. If the company has to pay for the transitioning, the equation gets pushed AWAY from automation because of the added costs of paying former employees. If the employees pay for it, you screw people over. Spreading the costs across all Americans (taxes) prevents structual economic changes from falling upon the individuals hit or the regions that they are locating.
The other problem is what to do with older employees. Someone who is 45 or 50, that has held a job since they were 15-20, is in a difficult position to change functions. Perhaps we need a more useful early retirement system.
Ideally, we don't WANT companies or people to fear changes or avoid changes. We want to embrace changes.
It would be nice to live in a world where people (workers, entreprenuers always take risks) focus on doing their job and living their life. If there are changes, they figure out a way to adapt afterwards, instead of worrying or fearing change.
Just a thought, it might ADD efficiency to our economy...
Alex
Remember our history (Score:1)
Re:no subject (Score:3, Informative)
I work for Saturn as a Controls Engineer, and you can forget about getting rid of (many) more folks through automation. The low hanging fruit has been plucked, that being the welding robots, and in our case, some of the powertrain operations.
The simple truth is that humans are still required to do most of assembly (urethaning the glass & roof not included), and to get the fit and finish of a car looking good. It will be some time before these operations are relegated to robots.
And why bother? Since if breaking the union is what you want to do, then the way to do that is to set your plant up as a "X" plant. That is where your plant does nothing but assembly (as opposed to doing the stamping, welding, painting, etc). The way this works is that you bring in the guys who make the radios, and have them install them on the line instead of a UAW worker. This not only cuts your overhead, so it's cheaper (it's pretty much certain that these guys aren't going to get UAW scale -- and never mind the benifits), but you also lessen the impact of the union.
It's already happening in South America, Ford does it, I think that we do it too (that being GM). Volkwagen planned on doing it too (in fact they stole the plans from us, and lost in court over it)
Re:Auto Plant Automation (Score:1)
Re:Auto Plant Automation (Score:1)
Those workers could also be running cells, which wouldn't necessarily mean that they need to touch the parts ever, just set the machines and make sure they stay running properly. I don't know. I read it in a book, the title of which I forget the name. I'll post it once I can find it.
Re:no subject (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, the reason Ford et. al. have all the automation they do is because of the high cost of labour. You think they'd buy a $3M robot to do a job if they could pay a person $5/Hr to do it? It wouldn't make sense, since the robot would likely cost $5M (price+maintenance) over it's useful lifetime of 5 years, and even paying the average person $5/Hr would cost Ford $350K for 35 years. So they would get 10 people for 7 times as long and still pay less money in the end. Oh, why $3M? Because there isn't a computer anywhere that can make decisions better than a human brain of any stature. Computers can crunch data easily, as long as the data is fairly constatnt - humand excell at dealing with dynamic data. It would take a major beowulf cluster to deal with all of the dynamics on an assembly line the way a single human being could deal with them.
Now, since people cost more than machines to use for a lot of the repeditive/boring/dangerous jobs, Ford uses machines for those jobs instead. It's a business - they use it if it contributes to the bottom line. Even the reason for most businesses keeping employees happy is not because of altruism, it's because happy workers are productive workers. Productive workers are cost-effective workers, and cost-effective = more profits.
As far as the price of vehicles go, it's not just Joe Sixpack turning bolts that's getting paid big $, you know - Ford does have a huge salaried contingent as well. All of thier employees contribute to overhead, not just the Unionised staff. I'd make a wild guess that if Union jobs were worth $5/hr, you'd only see the price of a car drop maybe $700.
IOW, it's not as simple as you make it sound, bub. Any economist (as long as they're not a big C conservative) will tell you the same thing - higher wages in one area lead to more jobs in other areas since the people getting more tend to spend more.
Unions have thier place even today (though I do wish they'd try to modernise some of thier attitude just a bit).
Soko
Re:no subject (Score:1, Informative)
Good points, but $5/Hr? (Score:2)
Key thing left out here, in much of the anti-union flavor of many posts is that the Ford workers were getting some hefty profit sharing bonuses in prior years, which they will probably not see again for a while, these were in the $2,500-5,000 range.
FWIW, if you actually have a fulltime job, go see your HR people and get a disclosure statement on the cost of actually having you there. It's often 1.5 times your salary, workplace expenses not withstanding.
Re:no subject (Score:2)
WRONG! No economist would say anything so simple and definite.
What I might say is that artificially inflated wages in one area (inflated, say, by a union) will impoverish everyone, though the nonunion workers would certainly be hurt far wose than the union workers with the artificially high wages . Higher wages due to higher productivity (raised, say, by the employer's capital expenditure) will have the effect you describe.
I took a union shop leader's training course once, and was shocked by the ``screw your employer'' attitude. It soured me on unions in a big way. This was the American Federation of Teachers, by the way, hardly a notorious bunch of militants.
Re:no subject (Score:1)
If it weren't for the union, that place would be just another shit-hole factory for the entry level employees and probably not a whole lot different than it is now for the engineers and management. As far as productivity goes, it seems like the only way management types seem to know how to 'increase' it, is to fire workers, lower wages, and make the remaining staff work harder and longer. I could do without those kinds of 'productivity' gains, and that's as good a purpose for unions as any.
Re:no subject (Score:2, Informative)
You can buy a nice Staublii or Motoman robot for around $80,000.
Of course by the time you generate controls drawings, mechanical drawings (for end effectors and fixturing) and develope the application you are problably talking closer to $120-$150k for one robot.
We very seldom use what most here would concider a computer for machine control. Besides that, I have working on a project where we had to handle 33 variations of the same part on one piece of assembly and test equipment. The entire project was less than $2 million. The cycle time for a completed part was 10 seconds.
An Allen-Bradley SLC 5/04 processor with 16k (yes, that is k) is typical of what we use for machine control. I know this seems a small amount of RAM, but when you are primarily dealing with bits not much is required.
I have to disagree with you here. In some cases, the computer can make the dicisions much more quickly and reliably than any human on earth. One example I have personal experience with is machine vision systems. I did a project that involved inspecting disk pack assemblies that were assembled by hand and then orbital formed them in place. The operator would swear that he assembled them correctly when our machine rejected an assembly. Upon inspection, it was proven every time that the operator had in fact assembled them incorrectly. During final exceptance we even rejected an assembly because an eyelash was in the disk assembly. Our customers were very impressed and it also made a strong case for doing this assembly in a clean room.
Actually that is $364k in 35 years, but you left out things like benefits, social security taxes, and unemployment insurance that the company has to pay on top of the emplyee's wages.
OK, I could go on for quite a while but I am done for now...
Re:no subject (Score:1)
I was shocked at how LITTLE automation there was. Basically, the only thing that was automated was painting, and putting the tire onto the rim and inflating it. Other than that, it is all hand made. Other than that, it is conveyor technology and tools to make installing parts faster and easier.
For example, there is this thing that a guy pushed over that slides into an instrument panel on a cart. It is on hydraulics so he can pick it up with almost no effor, slide it over into the body of the vehicle, and by pressing a button all the screws are automatically put in, and it takes about 15 seconds.
Now, you could have four guys pick up this heavy thing, clamber over the raw chassis and use hand screwdrive to attach it, but I doubt they'd like it. You could also have people manually pushing the cars along, but I doubt they'd like that much. It would also suck to have to paint 1200 cars in a day by hand (thats how many Focuses can come out of the plant in a day). Really, the robotic tools are limited to jobs that a human COULDN'T do, and manual tools assist them in making their job much much easier.
These plants are not what you would expect.
Re:no subject (Score:1)
Do you honestly believe that if unions were eliminated that cars would suddenly drop in price? I imagine any savings gained by full automation would not be passed along to the consumer, but would instead just be claimed as extra profit.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers of how much of a car's cost is due to wages, materials, company profit, etc.
Besides, if the car is overpriced, don't buy one. Free market, no?
-J5K
Unions don't make cars expensive (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the proof is the simple fact that cars made in places such as Mexico, where the labour force is paid an iota of the price of the United States/Canadian auto labour force, cost just as much. VW, Chrysler, Ford : They've all opened plants there (many companies have opened plants based upon "low wages" and quickly pulled out after discovering that wages are only one small part of running a factory) and strangely I still see the price of cars rising and rising, yet at the same time the natural unemployment rate increases as an entire sector of workers is displaced. The idea that unions increase the cost of cars substantially is not based in any reality whatsoever.
Re:Unions don't make cars expensive (Score:1)
I'm a former production supervisor for one of the "Big 3" automakers. I will never buy an American car again, after seeing the quality of vehicle that rolled off our line. Why didn't I do anything? Well, short answer is that with the union it's pretty much impossible to make any meaningful change. The exception to this is American cars made in Mexico. I've visited Mexican automotive plants and the quality of car built is absolutely excellent. Mexican workers are extremely happy to have such high payinging jobs, relative to their fellow countrymen.
Unions DO increase the cost of cars substantially, not just the employment of surly overpaid union workers, but also with massive reductions in warranty cost, production costs, etc.
The bottom line is it would be much cheaper to build cars outside of the U.S. The reason it's not done is because of politics. Unions basically have the Big 3 by the cajones, and it's lucky for their membership, otherwise all these jobs would be shipped overseas.How? Well the UAW typically negotiates into their contract upgrades to current plants in use. (Eg, the company agrees to spend $25 million upgrading the "X car plant"). Also they have pretty much unionized all the major companies that supply parts to the big 3 automakers. This is leveraged in many ways. I'll leave it up to your imagination.
Re:Unions don't make cars expensive (Score:1)
Unions DO increase the cost of cars substantially, not just the employment of surly overpaid union workers, but also with massive reductions in warranty cost, production costs, etc.
This is one of those things that I would believe given appropriate metrics, but most metrics that I've seen indicate the opposite. For example the JD Power quality award for North America I have never, ever seen go to a Mexican plant, however it's gone to plants in Ontario, Georgia, etc.
I think a lot of it is the image that the anti-union crowd has been so successful at selling of a bunch of surly gangsta's that comprise unions, rather than say lots of fathers and mothers who just want to have a somewhat secure and reasonable lifestyle. Again with production costs and warranty costs: Show me a single car made in Mexico, for instance, that represents a great value and/or great quality versus the US/Canadian counterpart. The Dodge Neon was made in Mexico and Illinois, and it was a well known fact that the one you had to watch out for (in a negative way) was the Mexican one.
support (Score:5, Interesting)
"Unionized GM assemblers make $21.02 per hour, Ford assemblers $21.03 and DaimlerChrysler assemblers $21.01."
This from: http://www.auto.com/industry/qgm17.htm [auto.com]
I don't see the point in giving away PCs to people with these salaries. Especially considering the percentage of these people in two income households. (Check the census [census.gov])
Now if Ford really wanted to do some good for the world, they'd give computers to their foreign workers and leave the Americans to buy their own.
Re:support (Score:1)
For the math impared, that's $42000 a year. Plus benefits.
Which is about 15% more than I made at my last programming job. The disclaimer there is, I'm in the Southeastern US, where $37000 is a really good salary. NecroPuppy - Still looking for work.