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Post by mumf on Mar 29, 2016 21:09:50 GMT
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Post by stayingupfor GermanStokie on Mar 29, 2016 21:24:21 GMT
Its a massive issue. We have had a massive steel manufacturer literally 30 mins up the road from the business unit I work from (until it closed very recently) but it was cheaper to ship in steel from Italy than buy from there... The quality is just as high there (Italy) too, if not slightly higher...
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Post by mumf on Mar 29, 2016 21:28:49 GMT
Its a massive issue. We have had a massive steel manufacturer literally 30 mins up the road from the business unit I work from (until it closed very recently) but it was cheaper to ship in steel from Italy than buy from there... The quality is just as high there (Italy) too, if not slightly higher... Less operating costs in terms of wages perhaps..?
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Post by salopstick on Mar 29, 2016 21:31:23 GMT
Is it an issue where some industries just try and carry on when faced with opposition rather than change slightly to compete? By then it's too late
Just a thought
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Post by stayingupfor GermanStokie on Mar 29, 2016 21:34:31 GMT
Not sure.... Wages are pretty comparable against cost of living over there so possibly. They're not paid a massive amount here to be fair...
But the CAPEX may have more of an impact than OPEX... I've noticed the lack of real investment in machinery here in the UK allowing them to run past end life.... The U.K. Is quite slow to react to the changing market and negotiating costs for materials... I think the Mainland Europeans are much more ruthless.
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Post by santy on Mar 29, 2016 21:34:42 GMT
On ITV news they were saying the government is seriously considering re-nationalising the steel industry as a result, although the main motivation seemed to be more about Cameron not wanting the legacy of being the Tory PM who let the steel industry in the UK die.
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Post by stayingupfor GermanStokie on Mar 29, 2016 21:38:40 GMT
On ITV news they were saying the government is seriously considering re-nationalising the steel industry as a result, although the main motivation seemed to be more about Cameron not wanting the legacy of being the Tory PM who let the steel industry in the UK die. I think you could be right.... No doubt the Maggie loathers will be out in force when the reality is that the British Industry were poor to react to the market and this has nothing to do with the Government. Before people start crying unfair... The company I work with deals globally with procuring these materials and British Steel is massively uncompetitive.
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Post by salopstick on Mar 29, 2016 21:40:21 GMT
Not sure.... Wages are pretty comparable against cost of living over there so possibly. They're not paid a massive amount here to be fair... But the CAPEX may have more of an impact than OPEX... I've noticed the lack of real investment in machinery here in the UK allowing them to run past end life.... The U.K. Is quite slow to react to the changing market and negotiating costs for materials... I think the Mainland Europeans are much more ruthless. We tend to have the attitude (some could say arrogance) that British is best and the rest of the world will buy because of that. Coal Cars Pottery Etc etc
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Post by Huddysleftfoot on Mar 29, 2016 21:42:42 GMT
A victim of global capitalism as was coal before it.
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Post by salopstick on Mar 29, 2016 21:45:48 GMT
A victim of global capitalism as was coal before it. its more complex than that For years the major nations controlled global industry. Now China, India and Brazil emerge in these industries we moan that they succeed as we slide. stayingupfor GermanStokie is right. The U.K. are late to act so we suffer.
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Post by stayingupfor GermanStokie on Mar 29, 2016 21:50:25 GMT
Not sure.... Wages are pretty comparable against cost of living over there so possibly. They're not paid a massive amount here to be fair... But the CAPEX may have more of an impact than OPEX... I've noticed the lack of real investment in machinery here in the UK allowing them to run past end life.... The U.K. Is quite slow to react to the changing market and negotiating costs for materials... I think the Mainland Europeans are much more ruthless. We tend to have the attitude (some could say arrogance) that British is best and the rest of the world will buy because of that. Coal Cars Pottery Etc etc I'm not so sure these days that they hang as vehemently onto the British is best ideology. British material is very high quality and the costs are reflective. The issue is twofold. British manufacturers always seem to want to cover all angles when attaining quality whilst the more successful ones are still high quality however in line with standards and not far in excess of it (like the Brits). Their is also a sense of loyalty with long standing relationships (including suppliers of core materials) even if they are very uncompetitive, rather than negotiate with varying suppliers to get the best price. These two thing and the almost American style "Business is business" viewpoint is what makes non British competition much more flexible and cheaper. Btw this is only my viewpoint on core production suppliers (heavy material and manufacturing) as British industry in other sectors are doing really well (IT etc etc)
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Post by santy on Mar 29, 2016 21:53:27 GMT
I suppose part of it is the nature of the beast of business though. When you're expanding, growing and new on the block as it were, you tend to buy what's available at the time in terms of technology. There's no union issues to worry about stifling the integration of new processes that perhaps only need 800 people to run instead of 1000.
Unions are ultimately a very self-destructive entity, they do great things in terms of trying to keep people in jobs and supporting workers and ensuring a degree of fairness - but ultimately somewhere down the line it reaches the point where companies aren't able to compete.
Working for a tools company these days, so this does have a knock on effect of sorts but we had moved away from a lot of British tools as they were extremely expensive for no other reason than being British.
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Post by The Drunken Communist on Mar 29, 2016 21:56:44 GMT
Not sure.... Wages are pretty comparable against cost of living over there so possibly. They're not paid a massive amount here to be fair... But the CAPEX may have more of an impact than OPEX... I've noticed the lack of real investment in machinery here in the UK allowing them to run past end life.... The U.K. Is quite slow to react to the changing market and negotiating costs for materials... I think the Mainland Europeans are much more ruthless. We tend to have the attitude (some could say arrogance) that British is best and the rest of the world will buy because of that. Coal Cars Pottery Etc etc For two of those the 'arrogance' is simply the truth.
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Post by RichieBarkerOut! on Mar 29, 2016 21:59:50 GMT
I'm not suggesting that the UK government should have stepped in, about a year ago, when the writing was on the wall, but I can remember them saying that they could not intervene, because it would be against EU Competition Rules. I've not heard them come out with that line lately, I wonder why?
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Post by salopstick on Mar 29, 2016 22:00:32 GMT
I suppose part of it is the nature of the beast of business though. When you're expanding, growing and new on the block as it were, you tend to buy what's available at the time in terms of technology. There's no union issues to worry about stifling the integration of new processes that perhaps only need 800 people to run instead of 1000. Unions are ultimately a very self-destructive entity, they do great things in terms of trying to keep people in jobs and supporting workers and ensuring a degree of fairness - but ultimately somewhere down the line it reaches the point where companies aren't able to compete. Working for a tools company these days, so this does have a knock on effect of sorts but we had moved away from a lot of British tools as they were extremely expensive for no other reason than being British. in my opinion unions live for today and don't keep a big enough look out for the future. I get they do a lot of good but sometimes it's better to take half a shit pill now rather than the whole pack later
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Post by mumf on Mar 29, 2016 22:27:47 GMT
I cannot see the Steel industry or any other Industry in this country ever being nationalised ,but if ever it is , then we should start with the care of the elderly . This is an area that will eventually bankrupt us all , whilst the owners of which have become extremely rich over the last decade . They pay minimum wages and charge up to £700 a week . One of my customers has three homes and openly admits that footballers wages are not just the preserve of footballers.... Another customer runs a care home for elderly ex sex offenders and her bosses charge £800 a week .last year they made a £2.5 million profit .
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Post by ukcstokie on Mar 30, 2016 0:07:56 GMT
I don't think EU rules allow for the steel industry to be nationalised.
This looks like a short term problem does it not?
The Chinese have over produced steel. It will take them a while to adjust their production, but until then there will be alot of cheap steel dumped on the world. If we lose our steel industry then we will have problems when the adjustment takes place.
This isn't true market forces highlighting an inefficient part of the industry, but a temporary storm that we need to ensure our steel industry survives. I suspect that the EU won't allow us though to keep the patient alive in intensive care until they are able to recover though.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2016 5:33:50 GMT
A lot of steel produced in China and India is heavily subsidised by their governments to export, and many products now have anti dumping surcharges levied against them to combat that, 2 examples are Fasteners, & Rubber Tyres. When I was importing fasteners from China, British manufacturers were just so far off the price, even after import tax, shipping etc etc, I was saving over 50%, and the quality was superb, I was lucky enough to visit the factory in China and was gob smacked to see all the machines, all second hand refurbs, all bought from closed UK factories, and for specialised fasteners such as Titanium and Hastelloy where mill certs were required they were actually buying the raw material from the UK, and shipping the finished goods back to the UK and getting huge subsidies to do so. Fact remains that manufacturers of Cars, White Goods, Building products, that are buying 1000's of Tons of steel every week will inevitably go to the plant that can supply the right goods at the right price, if we introduced protectionalism and insisted that British industry had to buy British steel regardless of the cost, then said industry would also go to the wall, as cheaper finished goods would, and indeed already do, flood the country. Sadly the same can be said for Coal. If the power stations were forced to buy British coal, it would have simply been too expensive, fact remains as an Island with limited resources, and years of extracting, the good stuff, and the easily accessible stuff has gone.
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Post by redstriper on Mar 30, 2016 6:39:14 GMT
I was working in the coal industry when that fell apart and can attest it was down to the cost of production, its not possible to compete with giant opencast mines where the coal is simply extracted from a hill with a jcb by sending 500 men underground.
The pottery industry could have been turned around with investment, because much more than with coal/steel - people buy pottery on other things rather than price. Quality, design and brand strength allow you to sell at a premium.
The region was let down.
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Post by partickpotter on Mar 30, 2016 6:45:34 GMT
I was working in the coal industry when that fell apart and can attest it was down to the cost of production, its not possible to compete with giant opencast mines where the coal is simply extracted from a hill with a jcb by sending 500 men underground. The pottery industry could have been turned around with investment, because much more than with coal/steel - people buy pottery on other things rather than price. Quality, design and brand strength allow you to sell at a premium. The region was let down. Let down by who?
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Post by RichieBarkerOut! on Mar 30, 2016 6:56:05 GMT
I was working in the coal industry when that fell apart and can attest it was down to the cost of production, its not possible to compete with giant opencast mines where the coal is simply extracted from a hill with a jcb by sending 500 men underground. The pottery industry could have been turned around with investment, because much more than with coal/steel - people buy pottery on other things rather than price. Quality, design and brand strength allow you to sell at a premium. The region was let down. Let down by who? The pottery owners' short sightedness wanted to keep the population of Stoke ignorant and poorly educated. They blocked inward investment in the 1980s, (through their influence on the council), of schemes that would have bought new skills to the area. That's how we ended up with shopping parks and warehouses.
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Post by wizzardofdribble on Mar 30, 2016 7:39:01 GMT
The pottery owners' short sightedness wanted to keep the population of Stoke ignorant and poorly educated. They blocked inward investment in the 1980s, (through their influence on the council), of schemes that would have bought new skills to the area. That's how we ended up with shopping parks and warehouses. It was also the result of extremely high interest rates that made exports much more expensive (because as interest rates go up so does the value of the the pound) and imports much cheaper. Hence we saw massive drops in sales from pottery firms who sold most of their pottery abroad (like Shaw & Copestake in.Longton which was my first job) at the same time as imports of pottery from abroad became much cheaper. This situation continued throughout the 1980s and decimated the pottery industry. Interest rates are NOT set by local government. We see the same situation now with Steel. Unions should be more proactive (according to Salop) Over the decades we have simply failed to invest in Industry on a big enough scale compared to countries like Japan and Germany. In essence, five factors have led to this situation. Globalisation..The opening up of World Markets China..Its massive industrialisation and cheap labour European Union..Failure to protect European Industry from cheap Imports. Government...Fiddling while Rome burns. Sit back and do nothing. Green taxes...very high in the UK steel market.
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Post by salopstick on Mar 30, 2016 8:12:54 GMT
The pottery owners' short sightedness wanted to keep the population of Stoke ignorant and poorly educated. They blocked inward investment in the 1980s, (through their influence on the council), of schemes that would have bought new skills to the area. That's how we ended up with shopping parks and warehouses. It was also the result of extremely high interest rates that made exports much more expensive (because as interest rates go up so does the value of the the pound) and imports much cheaper. Hence we saw massive drops in sales from pottery firms who sold most of their pottery abroad (like Shaw & Copestake in.Longton which was my first job) at the same time as imports of pottery from abroad became much cheaper. This situation continued throughout the 1980s and decimated the pottery industry. Interest rates are NOT set by local government. We see the same situation now with Steel. It always amuse me when people blame unions. They simply react to situations. They don't cause them. Apart from the 1970s when some Unions did their bit to destroy manufacturing industry. Over the decades we have simply failed to invest in Industry on a big enough scale compared to countries like Japan and Germany..and this has led inevitably..to drastic measures having to be taken. That is at the heart of the problem. Visit any Japanese factory based in the UK and look at the technology. Look at German engineering. We are still a long way behind. I'm amused by your "unions don't ever... Apart from....." You said it your self unions react to events. They should be more proactive.
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Post by wizzardofdribble on Mar 30, 2016 8:15:25 GMT
It was also the result of extremely high interest rates that made exports much more expensive (because as interest rates go up so does the value of the the pound) and imports much cheaper. Hence we saw massive drops in sales from pottery firms who sold most of their pottery abroad (like Shaw & Copestake in.Longton which was my first job) at the same time as imports of pottery from abroad became much cheaper. This situation continued throughout the 1980s and decimated the pottery industry. Interest rates are NOT set by local government. We see the same situation now with Steel. It always amuse me when people blame unions. They simply react to situations. They don't cause them. Apart from the 1970s when some Unions did their bit to destroy manufacturing industry. Over the decades we have simply failed to invest in Industry on a big enough scale compared to countries like Japan and Germany..and this has led inevitably..to drastic measures having to be taken. That is at the heart of the problem. Visit any Japanese factory based in the UK and look at the technology. Look at German engineering. We are still a long way behind. I'm amused by your "unions don't ever... Apart from....." You said it your self unions react to events. They should be more proactive. Just edited it
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Post by RichieBarkerOut! on Mar 30, 2016 8:53:10 GMT
The pottery owners' short sightedness wanted to keep the population of Stoke ignorant and poorly educated. They blocked inward investment in the 1980s, (through their influence on the council), of schemes that would have bought new skills to the area. That's how we ended up with shopping parks and warehouses. It was also the result of extremely high interest rates that made exports much more expensive (because as interest rates go up so does the value of the the pound) and imports much cheaper. Hence we saw massive drops in sales from pottery firms who sold most of their pottery abroad (like Shaw & Copestake in.Longton which was my first job) at the same time as imports of pottery from abroad became much cheaper. This situation continued throughout the 1980s and decimated the pottery industry. Interest rates are NOT set by local government. We see the same situation now with Steel. Unions should be more proactive (according to Salop) Over the decades we have simply failed to invest in Industry on a big enough scale compared to countries like Japan and Germany..and this has led inevitably..to drastic measures having to be taken. In essence, four factors have led to this situation. Globalisation..The opening up of World Markets China..Its massive industrialisation and cheap labour European Union..Failure to protect European Industry from cheap Imports. Government...Fiddling while Rome burns. Sit back and do nothing. The point I was making was not about the downfall of the pottery industry, it was about how our city became a city without identity and why it rejected opportunities that could have transitioned it into something more viable than it is today. The pottery owners were greedy, self serving and short sighted, much like the council of the day. Perhaps the council is better these days.
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Post by salopstick on Mar 30, 2016 9:03:50 GMT
I'm amused by your "unions don't ever... Apart from....." You said it your self unions react to events. They should be more proactive. Just edited it I would also add if the EU didn't do enough to protect Europe then successive UK governments had their hands tied up by EU Law Roll on june
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Post by salopstick on Mar 30, 2016 9:05:33 GMT
And we'll done Chinese and Indian steel industries. You have completely absolved Thatcher on the oatcake
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Post by mumf on Mar 30, 2016 9:08:45 GMT
Perhaps with a name like the Potteries it will always have an "identity " but as a result one that is locked in the dim and distant past ....
It was always going to be difficult to re-invent itself , but I think we have not made the most of our geographical advantages in terms of central locality .
To a certain extent I think we have missed the boat and have being playing catch up ever since .
Transport and distribution is an area we could have made more inroads towards . Sadly , others have prevailed where we have fell by the wayside .
We have never properly addressed our town/city centre planning with enough vigour or enterprise ...it's all been very small scale and myopic in its approach .
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Post by sheikhmomo on Mar 30, 2016 10:01:47 GMT
Of course it doesn't help that we have a Chancellor and Government whose main strategy has been to pander to every whim of Beijing actively preventing the European Commission from addressing dumping and arguing that their 80% state owned industry should be given market economy status.
They then give a multi billion pound defence contract to Swedish Steel and leave Kinnock and the Union bloke flapping in the wind in India, yesterday.
This Government doesn't give a fuck about our Steel industry or the lives that the eradication of it will throw into despair.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2016 11:48:40 GMT
This demolition of British industry started with the bitch!
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