Harley Davidson Again

[Since the last post was long, distressing, and depressing, full of stuff that I wanted to record, this post will be short. The other one took me many days (2 weeks) to organize and still I was not happy – very emotionally draining as I worry what America is becoming.]

Harley Davidson is in the news again, this time in reference to the tariffs trade war. They announced that they will be offshoring their manufacturing because the proposed tariffs is (or will be) hurting them and to remain competitive, they needed to move their manufacturing overseas.

Um… it’s hard to be sorry for them. I’m sorry for the workers who will lose jobs but I’m not sorry for the management of the company. The company was going to offshore anyway; tariffs are just accelerating their plans. When they received their wonderful tax cuts, they turned around and gave the money to their shareholders through stock buybacks rather than increase the wages of their workers. At the same time, they were reserving some of that cash for the expense of offshoring (including the expense of laying off workers). In all of that, nothing was mentioned about investments in their workers.

Companies, this is how you lose support of the workers. Eventually they will turn on you. Right now, they’ve voted in Trump, and you may be okay with what he has done thus far, but these trade wars don’t sound good, in which case, a lot of businesses will be hurt. Large and small. And the state of mind of the average worker is such that they will cheer the take down of businesses, even if they get hurt in the process.

Companies, you need to run the business for the sake of ALL stakeholders, such as the community, the workers, etc., not just for the shareholders. The time has come for you to run your businesses responsibly and think of the holistic impact. Serving just the shareholders is no longer enough.

Companies, you made a big mistake in not raising the wages for your workers when you received that tax cut. You should have done the right thing and I fear that you receive payback. I just don’t know when.