MP Susan Truppe is being silly

MP Susan Truppe refused to stand with the locked out London workers.

Saw a tweet calling attention to a survey posted by MP Susan Truppe. The tweet called the survey silly. Truppe defended her survey tweeting back, "I don't see how its silly to ask if constituents feel its important or not."

Once attracted to her site, I noticed the MP had posted a statement on the labour dispute at Electro-Motive Diesel.Talk about silly. Why quibble over a survey when you've got a messed up statement clearly showing that the MP doesn't know much about the EMD operation in London.

She tells us, "It is important to note that, since the 1930’s, the EMD plant has been under American ownership." Huh? EMD is an American company and always has been. It was incorporated in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922 and bought by General Motors Corporation in late 1930. There was no facility in London until 1950 when GM opened the London EMD branch plant.

The EMD story gets interesting, with a strong feeling of deja vue, when we get to 1993. Read part of the story carried by the Chicago Tribune at the time.

"World's Largest Locomotive Builders" reads the sign outside the United Auto Workers Local 719 in southwest suburban La Grange. For more than 50 years, workers at the massive General Motors Corp. Electro-Motive Division plant down the street could claim the title without controversy.

Then last month the last two blue, orange and black diesel locomotives rolled out of the plant and into service for Metra, the Chicago area commuter rail system. The sign became a depressing reminder of past glories.

Only a dozen years ago, the sprawling, 3.6-million-square-foot factory was filled with the clang of metal presses, the hiss of welders, the cacophony of 13,000 skilled workers, and celebratory bell-ringing as they finished each of up to six locomotives a day. These 180-ton, 3,800-horsepower machines selling for more than $1 million apiece were not only industrial behemoths but also computerized, precision-finished, high-tech products.

Now fewer than 3,000 people are on the rolls, including 1,600 active production workers. The main bay where locomotives were assembled, a vast work space covering several football fields and rising nearly six stories, stands empty and silent like an abandoned cathedral.

The remaining workers still build diesel engines and components for locomotives that Electro-Motive now assembles at its Canadian factory. But management is busy shrinking the plant's size and work force and sending work to outside contractors.

It is also shrinking the hopes of union leaders who gambled on working with General Motors to save the plant."

The work that was shifted to London about two decades ago has now been reclaimed.

MP Susan Truppe wrote, "I remain hopeful that both the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and EMD can return to the bargaining table and find an amicable solution as soon as possible." This isn't just silly, it's insulting.

London has been losing its grip on the production of EMD locomotives for years. As early as 2000 at least, in order to meet the delivery schedule for 1,000 SD70Ms for Union Pacific, EMD spread workload among:

• GMLG in London, Ontario, Canada (assembly and paint)
• Bombardier-Concarril, Sahagun, Mexico (assembly and paint)
• SuperSteel Schenectady, Inc. (SSSI), Glenville, N.Y. (assembly and paint)
• Alstom at Hornell, N.Y. (final finishing and final paint, after assembly by SSI)

Long before Caterpillar entered the picture, EMD was one tough employer. Despite union efforts to prove the La Grange workers could compete, the workforce continued to shrink even after locomotive assembly went to London. The union worked hard for a year and a half to meet a company production goal for electrical coils, after the goals were met, the company shipped the production out anyway.

The move to open a new assembly plant in the States was underway while EMD was still under the control of the private equity groups. When Muncie opened last October, the writing was on the wall. Muncie was closer to suppliers, 50 percent larger and somewhat more modern than London. Assembly in Indiana skirts currency risk and the new workers are non-union. They will work for working-poor wages.

MP Truppe may have believed CAT would return to the bargaining table, but maybe Truppe also believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. The last two beliefs are not as silly as the first.

The discreet charms of the bourgeoisie investments

 

Last Friday (Feb. 3, 20120 the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London, Ontario was closed. A day earlier the Veyance Technologies plant in Owen Sound, Ontario was closed. These two closures threw hundreds of workers out of work and left two communities to deal with the fallout.

These two closings, separated by about 225 km., had at least one thing in common: John S. Hamilton. Hamilton is the present CEO and president of Veyance Technologies and from 2003 to 2010 he was CEO and president of Electro-Motive Diesel.

I found this interesting and decided to learn a little more about Mr. Hamilton.

I learned that this gentleman is also, or I should say was also, the CEO of the Tokheim Corporation. He took over the helm of Tokheim in 2001, and by November 2002 the company had filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Hamilton said at the time: "We are working through the bankruptcy process with our various constituencies to complete this sales process as quickly as possible. Our goal is to smoothly transition our businesses into the hands of new owners."

In 1898 John Tokheim, an Iowa hardware store owner, invented a pump to dispense kerosene and gasoline. It was such a fine pump that the business was purchased in 1918 and moved to Ford Wayne, Ind. from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Today, Tokheim still brags it's a world leader in fuel dispensing technology. It also brags it's French.

The French didn't get all the Tokheim operation. Back in 1986 Tokheim acquired the business they operated as Gasboy International, Inc. until March, 2003, at which time they sold their prize to the Danaher Corporation.

And how has that sale worked out? Well, on a bulletin board I read:

"Gasboy was a great company that myself and 249 other people use to work for until Danaher acquired us and shipped part of our plant to North Carolina to consolidate us with Gilbarco and of course they sent the rest of it to Mexico.

"Thank you Danaher."

There's a sad network of closures associated with the closure of the London EMD plant. And, contrary to what some like to argue, business closures of this nature do not always result in gains for the shareholders of the companies involved. But, in all the wheeling and dealing, there are most certainly winners and losers. The winners may not be long time owners, but johnny-come-lately private equity investors, and the losers are all too often the long time workers, and in some cases long term shareholders.

For a little more info, let me hand you off to a linked Economist article.

Light shows aren't cheap

Getting London, Ontario, to enliven the city core with a 600 thousand dollar plus light show celebrating the World Figure Skating Championships was a tough sell. Mayor Joe Fontana and Tourism London both made strong appeals and in the end the city council signed on to the dream. The price tag, the original sticking point, was shared by various companies and levels of government.

Screen grab from London videographer Rael Wienburg's work.

Years ago during a visit to Paris my wife and I were fortune enough to be in the City of Lights during a festival which saw major buildings throughout the city artfully illuminated. The show was memorable, very imaginative. The projected light transformed Greek columns at the front of one building into giant barber poles or animated candy canes. Neat.

Since first experiencing that festival of lights, I've been quite interested in the various light shows presented in cities around the world. There is no doubt light shows are totally cool. I can't see anyone disputing that. But, they are expensive and that is not in dispute either.

I did a lot of searching of the Internet, and except for London, I never did find posts detailing the total cost of presenting a complex light show. But from what I have read, I'm quite sure $600,000 would not cover the cost of some of the amazing light shows that have been presented around the world. London may well have gotten a bargain

For the National Capital Commission just to update Mosaika, the light show beamed onto the parliament buildings in Ottawa, the commission was willing to pay up to $260,000, or a bit over $14,000 a minute.

A light show for Ralph Lauren back in 2010 reportedly cost in the millions. Watch the You Tube video revealing some of what was done to make the dream a reality and a cost well into seven digits is easier to see than the floating, revolving red purse featured in the show -- and we all see the floating purse.

And light shows are not always videos projected onto buildings. Recently Ghent, in Belgium, made headlines around the world with a massive 55,000 LED creation, a cathedral in lights. Even in pictures, the immediate reaction is, "Wow!"

The light show in London, Ontario, was created by the Moment Factory out of Montreal. Going outside of one's own community to find folk with the talent and expertise to produce a 21st century light show is common. These presentations are not the simple, liquid light shows of the psychedelic '60s.

Technology used in Lyon can be found an hour from London.

A show in Lyon, France, was put together by Christie Digital Systems, Inc. Originally an American company, I believe, this company was taken over by Japanese interests and headed by Kenji Hamashima.

Hamashima was also head of Christie Digital Systems Canada. Christie Canada was the company responsible for handling the visuals at Tedx Waterloo. Yes that Waterloo, London's nemesis an hour east along 401.

Christie itself is located in Kitchener, London's other urban foe. It is interesting that London felt it necessary to go out of province to find a company to produce its show when help was so near at hand. (Who knows, maybe some of the artistic computer geaks in London could have assisted in this project if the production company had been located an hour away instead of eight.)

And while London traveled to Montreal to find a producer, Quebec City traveled to Kitchener. Christie produced the magnificent light show celebrating the French Canadian community's 400th anniversary.





To see more images from light shows from around the word google this: Festival of Lights

Let me start you off with a link to the BBC slideshow featuring the Lyon Fete des Lumieres.

Locomotives, pickles and coffee: all share one story

Recently I was told concerning the EMD lockout:

"For all the union bluster and condemnation about the enormous greed of Caterpillar, it is doing what all large corporations are required to do in law: act in their own self interest."

Well, that explains the recent pull-out of Bick's from Ontario by Smucker, the American owner. They didn't willingly choose this move, so destructive to the people of Dunnville, their hands were tied. They were only doing what is required in law. (What bunkum!)

Ontario tried coaxing the pickle company to stay in the province with sweet words made even sweeter by a $2.2 million Rural Economic Development (RED) grant. Smucker nibbled but didn't bite. They returned all the funds initially accepted and declined the remainder. They closed the Dunnville plant leaving up to 150 fulltime factory workers, 70 part-time staff, plus some seasonal workers out of jobs. Also affected were hundreds of area farmers and a state-of-the-art tank farm in Delhi.

According to Toby Barrett, MPP Haldimand-Norfolk, this was the last major industry in Dunnville. In the future, all Bick’s pickled products will be packed by unnamed “third-party manufacturers” and in expanded Smucker factories in Ripon, Wisconsin and Orrville, Ohio. All agricultural support moves to the States in 2012.

The National Post reports:

Bick's was founded in 1944 by Walter Bick, a young German Jew, 27, who had fled Europe just ahead of the Second World War. Walter and his wife Jeanny sold barrels of pickles to restaurants and army camps in the Toronto area before moving into retail in 1952. The company was sold to Robin Hood Flour in 1966. Robin Hood was taken over by Smucker in 2006.

"The plant closing has struck a sour note with former Bick’s employees. 'Americans come to Canada, buy a Canadian company, close it, and move it to the U.S.A. Shop for other brands, don’t help them screw us over,' reads a statement on Boycott Bick’s Pickles, a Facebook page created by disaffected former Bick’s employees."

The Electro-Motive Diesel lockout is grave but the story is not unique. I doubt it will be solved by the intervention of any well-meaning negotiators. I have watched this tale unfold in various permutations over and over, and not just in Ontario. Thanks to Google, I know that the story is even unfolding in Orrville, Ohio. Now, that's a surprise.

Orrville, Ohio has an expanded Smucker plant which replaced a 60-year-old facility, but the ''new technologies and efficiency improvements" results in more product being made by fewer people. Millions in capital investment eliminated 180 jobs or 40% of the Orrville work force. As production is ramped up at the modern plant through the summer of 2013, facilities in Memphis with 161 employees and in Quebec with 101 employees will be closed.

Robin Hood Flour and Bick's are not the only well-known brands to have been assimilated into the Smucker fold. Since 2001, Smucker has acquired Folgers coffee along with food brands Jif, Crisco, Pillsbury, Hungry Jack, Eagle Brand condensed milk and Europe's Best Inc., a private company headquartered in Montreal. (I've noticed that some of Europe's Best is packaged in China.)

Unfortunately, growing the brand has meant shrinking the jobs. Take Folgers. Smucker acquired the coffee company from Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble in 2008 for $3.3 billion. By 2011 the phase out of the Folgers Kansas City operation, with more than a hundred years of history and 179 employees and its Sherman plant with 95 jobs, was underway.

Missouri state Rep. Mike Talboy called the closings "extremely unfortunate" and said he hoped Folgers would reconsider. Talboy said he'd be working with the Missouri Department of Economic Development to see if there's anything that can be done to keep the plant open and keep the jobs in Kansas City. "I'm going to do everything I can to protect Kansas City jobs," Talboy said.

More nice thoughts. Nice thoughts by politicians, union leaders and newspaper columnists seem to surround and cushion these closures. As I wrote in my last post, folk like these should hold onto their nice thoughts, and they don't have to hold on too tightly. Those thoughts aren't going anywhere.

The Folgers KC closing also is accompanied by its own Facebook page.

EMD CEO's talk fails to mention London

"Money-losing" EMD expanded operations in China. Progress Rail CEO Billy Ainsworth shown.

Recently, I saw this tweet on Twitter:

Here's a link to The London Free Press column.

It's a nice thought. Larry Cornies, and others like him, should hold onto such nice thoughts, but they don't have to hold on too tightly. Those thoughts, and others like them, aren't going anywhere soon.

Maybe my expectations in situations like the EMD lockout have been soured by own experience working for a big, anti-union business – Quebecor – but I don't believe the Caterpillar representatives want to sit down with the London workers.

The Cornies tweet was followed by one by late2game pointing out that although Caterpillar is well into the black as a corporation, its EMD subsidiary is a drain on the big Cat. Late2game linked to a source reporting EMD lost $16 million. Cornies replied to late2game: "Thanks; that's detail I was looking for before deadline Thursday, but couldn't find. Confirms my suspicions."

In a lockout situation, I have a hard time confirming anything in my own mind. I'm very distrustful of everyone involved. I'm especially distrustful of all the facts surrounding the crisis. The bargaining is no longer being done at the table but on the street, in the media.

As a long time investor, I'm well aware that money losing companies can be damn fine investments. I'm not saying the books are cooked, they aren't, but the bottom line is not the whole story. If a company is investing a lot of money to grow future profits, the present may suffer. This does not mean the company is in trouble, especially if it is a subsidiary of a much larger company – one with very deep pockets, like Caterpillar.

John Hamilton, Electro-Motive Diesel CEO, has made great strides in growing the once faltering operation. I don't believe that EMD, once the little engine that could, is now the little engine that couldn't (turn a profit).

In London, we like to think of EMD as having its headquarters and some production facilities in La Grange, Illinois and its assembly plant in London, Ontario – and that's it. Well, a few years ago that was sort of true, but not today. (The production is actually in McCook, Illinois, just outside of La Grange.)

Today's EMD is not the company it was when it opened its London, Ontario, plant. EMD today:

• has opened a 740,000 sq. ft. assembly plant in Muncie, Indiana – that's far larger than the older, London, Ontario EMD facility.
• is expanding and modernizing an existing manufacturing plant in Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, Brazil to assemble and manufacture Electro-Motive Diesel-branded locomotives
• is producing EMD labelled locomotives at the Ciudad Sahagún Bombardier plant in Mexico.
• is hoping to produce locomotives in the near future in India.
• has opened a facility in San Luis Potosi, Mexico for traction motor maintenance and locomotive overhaul work.
• is opening multiple warehouse operations in northeastern China supporting a growing fleet of 6000-horsepower EMD. The complete assembly of locomotives for the Chinese market is envisioned.
• and the list goes on

According to the Wall Street Journal, EMD recorded $1.8 billion in global sales in 2008-09, making it one of the largest builders of diesel-electric locomotives in the world. Is EMD losing money? If it is, the management of EMD is incompetent and I don't think EMD management is incompetent. I doubt EMD is in financial trouble. The red $16 million dollar bottom-line number is nothing to be concerned about.

When EMD president and CEO John S. Hamilton appeared before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Hearing, on April 20, 2010, he bragged a great deal but he never got around to mentioning London.

"EMD was a floundering subsidiary of GM, with a very questionable future. Today, EMD has witnessed record revenues, earnings, and investments. Exports have doubled. Factory productivity is up 20 percent," he boasted.

He continued, "Over the last two years, our exports to India and China were over 50 times greater than our imports from those two countries. Few, if any, large heavy manufacturing companies can say that. We estimate that in our five years as an independent company, we have single-handedly improved the United States trade balance by $200M."

"We employ 1,600 workers in the U.S.," he said.

Concerning high speed rail, he said, if given the chance EMD "would make most all of the critical technologies [in McCook, Illinois]. We have the equipment. We have 1,600 American workers ready to do this work and we would recall workers currently on lay-off to meet the additional workload. In accordance with Buy America, we announced last week a search for a facility in which to perform final assembly. [This would be the Muncie plant that is now in limited operation.]

EMD is a company on the move. And everything indicates that their next big move will be to move out of London. [Shortly after writing this, Progress Rail and EMD announced the closure of the London plant. EMD moved out of London.]

Buy America Act

The Buy America Act was a provision of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 and is now codified by Section 5323(j) of Title 49 of the United States Code. Buy America provisions are applied to transit-related procurements valued over US$100,000, for which funding includes grants administered by the Federal Transit Authority (FTA) or Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Buy America provisions are a condition of U.S. federal government grants to state, municipal or other organizations including transit authorities. Buy America provisions, such as requirements for 100% U.S. content for iron/steel and manufactured products, put Canadian goods and services at a serious disadvantage when they form all or part of a bid by any supplier, whether U.S. or Canadian. Similar conditions prevail for airport projects that receive funds from the Federal Aviation Administration as authorized by the Airport and Airways Facilities Improvement Act. Such projects require that all steel and manufactured products have 60% U.S. content and that final assembly occur in the United States.

Note: Under NAFTA, the U.S. requires that Canadian goods and suppliers be exempt from these requirements if certain demands are met. That said, applying the exemptions can be messy and convoluted. Don't think for a minute that NAFTA provides simple protection for producers such as Electro Motive Diesel in London.

I talk the walk but talk is cheap!

I say that I hate mutual funds but I still own two: CIB512 and TDB622.

I like to say that I love ETFs. I do. I like to say I hate mutual funds. I do. I like to say I fear the risk of holding individual stocks. I do. I like to promote "couch potato" investing. But, I don't have nearly enough of my portfolio in ETFs. I have a big portion of my portfolio invested in two mutual funds and I've got a big slice of my portfolio pie filled with individual stocks.

Oh, did I say I like to stay clear of investing too heavily in one sector of the economy for fear of taking a big hit if that sector should fail? Well, that is my stated concern but you wouldn't know it from my portfolio.

My portfolio allocation is a financial road map to be followed during retirement but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to get off the marked route to take a scenic route for awhile or slip onto the freeway to cover some financial ground quickly.

Some time ago I dumped all my mutual funds but two. Not only did many of those funds fail to deliver the growth I was looking for, they paid very poor dividends. This was an unsustainable mix. My investments make up about 40 percent of my income in retirement. Clearly I had to make some hard choices. I did.

So, what are the two mutual funds that I kept? Both are monthly income funds and the one is the TD's offering and the other is the CIBC's. They are similar but different. I like 'em both. I have a huge chunk of my portfolio allocated to these two funds. In 2008 CIB512 lost all of 17.15 percent. Not bad considering the economy at the time. TDB622 lost more; It lost 23.4 percent. That loss, and the reason for it, was the cause of my temporary loss of confidence. I wasn't the only one damning the TD fund at the time but the fund managers made some important changes and are now back on track.

Today, CIB512 yields 5.63 percent and TD622 yields 2.92 percent. I have my mutual fund allocation split evenly between these two. Therefore, my mutual fund investments are yielding 4.275 percent in cash to fund my retirement.

The CIB fund pays out much more in dividends but does not show the same strong growth as the TD fund. I take the CIB money each money, no DRIP in place here. The CIB fund is down, at the moment, 1.72 percent for the year.

The TD fund, on the other hand, may not deliver the monthly payments but it has grown 3.57 percent year to date. I let the TD fund accumulate it's dividends and if I need the money, I cash some units in December. I try and keep the value of both investments close to equal.

When it comes to stock, I've got way more that I feel comfortable owning and my stock investments are way too concentrated when it comes to sectors. The Canadian financial sector and the Canadian energy sector are my big interests. I bought a lot during the crash of 2008 and have even added to my holdings since then. I did dump a little, it seemed wise, but the little I dumped would have paid me huge rewards if I had held on a little longer.

So I own some Royal Bank (and added to it when it hit about $45 some weeks ago), some Bank of Nova Scotia, some Crescent Point, some Penn West (and added to it when it dipped below $18 and wish I had had the funds to buy even more when it got below $14 recently.) I still have some Inter Pipeline but I lightened up when it climbed above $15. I had bought in at about half that and it seemed an opportune time to bring my allocation more in line with my stated goals.

I have a little Suncor (SU) but I am dumping it all when I get the chance. I got into Suncor through Petro Canada and I have never made money on that investment. It has been a loser since the get-go. There are better places for me to put my money in my retirement.

The rest of my portfolio is in ETFs and not one is a bond fund. I don't like bonds right now. They are not paying the yield that I need. When interest rates recover, I know that may take a few years but recover they will, the value of bond funds will go down as fast as interest rates go up. Bonds? No thanks.

That said, remember that both my mutual funds invest heavily in bonds. And one of my ETFs, Claymore S&P/TSX Preferred Share ETF (CPD), acts in a manner somewhat similar to bonds. CPD is yielding 4.75 percent at the moment as paying a monthly dividend. It is classed as a low risk investment on WebBroker.

I struggle to give my portfolio a bit of a mix. Not wise to have all of one's financial eggs in one basket. Think Nortel or income trusts or American financials. To this end I have bought ZUT, XRE, REM, XIC, XMD, SDY and a host of other ETFs.

I am up about one and a half percent for the year. I have been up more during the month but the last few days have seen some corrections in my holdings.

I worry about my portfolio but I also worry that in today's financial environment there are no easy answers. I worry that the famous "couch potato" portfolio, and others like it, wouldn't deliver the yield I so desperately need, and might be as prone to crashing during a financial disaster as my present mix. And so, I hold onto my investments, live on the yield and keep my fingers crossed.

One of my investments that bares careful watching is DRW. It may be on the mend.

Stop Mitt the Ripper

If you're a fan of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart and not a fan of the present Republican front runner, you'll enjoy this add attacking Mitt Romney. It was produced by the Super PAC accurately known as "Americans For a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow," but called "The Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC" by the two Comedy Central late night television satirists.