Laying Blame where It Belongs

Here is a bit from a good post by Yves Smith on her Naked Capitalism blog:

But if you were to ask most people, they’d now blame the fall of American manufacturing on our workers. That scapegoating serves to shift focus from the top of the food chain at a time when executives have managed to greatly widen the gap between their pay and that of the folks reporting to them.

Let me give you an all too typical example of how American management has contributed to the demise of our industrial competitiveness, namely, the former Mead Corporation paper mill in Escanaba, Michigan, which is now part of NewPage, owned by Cerberus.

The Escanaba mill makes coated paper. Coated paper is shiny paper, the sort you find in most magazines, catalogues, and art books. Coated paper is fussy to manufacture, which makes it daunting in a continuous process setting like a mill. In a highly-capital intensive continuous process business, downtime is hugely expensive.

In 1969, Mead added a #3 machine in Escanaba. Paper machines are very long-lived; you’ll find machines over 100 years old in use, since older, well maintained, well-located machines (as in with access to comparatively cheap power and pulp) can be competitive on grades of paper which are made in small runs (as in the slow speed of the machine is not a negative). The #3 machine was world class at the time of its installation. There was no reason to think it could not be highly competitive through 2020 or 2030 if properly maintained.

Starting up a new machine, however, is not an easy process, and the #3 machine was not operating at the expected efficiency level. Management nevertheless pressed forward with a further mill expansion in 1970-1971, of a kraft-recovery system. The best workers on the #1 machine were moved to the #3 machine which did not solve the problems on #3 and worsened the results of the #1 machine. It took an over two year turnaround effort to get the mill operations up to a good level of productivity.

By the mid 1970s, the Escanaba mill had gone from being the dog to the star. Mead had reorganized to be decentralized, so the Escanaba mill had its own sales force and a true stand-alone P&L Escanaba was one of 40 divisions yet produced the majority of Mead’s free cash flow. Mead added added a #4 machine in Escanaba in 1982. The mill was recognized as one of the best coated paper makers in the US, and demanding publishers such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Playboy sought out its product

Mead has also had troubled period with its unions, in particular a bad strike in 1975-6. But a real turn came in the later 1980s. Mead had had a series of record-breaking profit years, each higher than the last, yet sought to squeeze the unions in 1989.

Go read the whole post to get all the gory details of mismanagement. It is a true horror story.

It is sad when workers get blamed for the greed and incompetence of management. But that is America of today. The top 1% are flushing that country down the toilet while they milk it for all the money they can extort out of it. They will leave a broken and truly bankrupt husk. Sad.