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The eBearing News
started May 17, 2004
Editorial Commentary in re:
Timken Will Close Three Canton-area Bearing Plants
copyright © 2004 eBearing Inc.
NOTE: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone.
In an unfortunate rush for irony without research, a number of too-cute-for-their-own-good general media
news organizations have erroneously stated, then picked up from each other and repeated, that Timken is, "closing
down the same bearing plant where President Bush gave an economic speech in 2003." Or, they will say
Timken is closing down one of the bearing plants where Bush gave an April 2003 economic speech.
This is wrong, and the worst type of irresponsible journalism in a too-quick search for the easy
angle of clever irony in place of well-researched understanding and communication.
In fact, President Bush gave his April 2003 economic speech at Timken Research, an unrelated facility which
should properly be celebrated by U.S. media as one of the leading facilities of its type in the world.
Timken Research is in no danger of being closed, and is geographically and operationally separate from
the bearing manufacturing plants targeted.
Although far from alone, the Associated Press has been the worst offender on this error. eBearing has
tried on at least a dozen occasions to get the AP to get their facts correct, to no avail. Daily, new articles
from the AP continue to repeat and, in many cases, embellish the error. As of August, we have had no response
to our requests for correction, and in fact AP has since published a new, further embellished, versions.
• click for the April 23, 2003 article on eBearing
Similarly lazy popular media and low-level politicians have often attempted to politicize these and other
plant closings as signaling a particular administration's failed economic policy.
To insinuate that manufacturing businesses, people's jobs and livelihoods, exist as political
pawns is insulting to the men and women who work so hard in the manufacturing industry today, actually
creating wealth and value in the U.S. economy. The same cannot be said for politicians and news
agencies (eBearing included).
In fact, these plants' troubles have nothing at all to do with who may or may not be President, and
long predate the current White House administration. The moves initiated by the Timken Company are simply the latest in
a long series of initiatives, dating back to at least 2001, the company has been pursuing
in order to remain viable, to hold its place in the face of an increasingly
competitive and commoditized world market for bearings.
And if the Canton plant closings are so troubling, then where were the opportunist politicians and
popular media when Timken shuttered the Duston plant (which once employed 4,000 workers), or the Rockford or
Darlington or Little Rock or Columbus or Ashland facilities? Or RSC's in Chicago, Dallas and Columbus? These
received little or no coverage from attention-starved pols and pop media. Nor did the thousands of job cuts made
by Timken across its organization, hourly and salary, throughout its home office and manufacturing facilities.
Most of those jobs are gone forever. In contrast, the impact of the Canton
plant closings is likely to be far more benign; certainly, the loss of loss important jobs in Canton, but
opportunities for skilled jobs to be gained in facilities and communities where the work goes. eBearing's
own review of plants likely to receive the Canton work shows all are in areas badly in need of skilled jobs.
Conversely, where was the popular media when Timken bought Torrington, an old-line U.S. bearing manufacturer
being systematically run into the ground by Ingersoll-Rand, which itself relocated to Bermuda to avoid paying
U.S. taxes? Where was the uproar when Torrington was almost acquired by a German bearing company, virtually
guaranteeing the loss of most U.S. jobs? eBearing must have missed the part where sanctimonious politicians
and pop media lined up to applaud Timken for acquiring Torrington, saving thousands of good-paying
and skilled manufacturing jobs across the United States and several other countries.
Perhaps politicians' and popular media's self-important instant wisdom has more to do with forced election year
flailing for any political angle, no matter how contorted, to account for the day-to-day workings of our
manufacturing economy ... rather than embracing
and actually trying to understand the challenges faced by manufacturers in the United States.
Popular media often tries to politicize manufacturing rather than understand it. Many of the dynamics playing
out in this situation involving Torrington and Timken actually got their start as far back as 1969.
But it would take an inconveniently large amount of time in order to properly understand the situations and how
they developed. In this day of infotainment, precious little effort is made to understand or appreciate
the situations manufacturers around the world find themselves in every day.
If the popular media wants to politicize manufacturing it does little to try to understand, then
perhaps it would do well to mention the disastrous state of Ohio's business environment.
A recent Forbes magazine reviewed the best and worst places to do business in the United States.
In it, Ohio ranked 43rd out of 50 in the state-by-state "business economic freedom" list. And a separate study put
Canton, Ohio 147th out of the 150 largest U.S. metropolitan areas.
Only Biloxi, Mississippi; Youngstown, Ohio; and Flint, Michigan were ranked lower than Canton.
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- by Bruce A. Carr
from individual research,
tips and commercial sources.
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered
trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright © 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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