sparky 1971
Well-known member
The context of this entire thread is that SK has moved somewhere between some and all of it's production from the US to China. The nobody I was referring to are American companies.
New Low for SK
- Thread starter BrandonV
- Start date
The US or Germany can’t compete with low wage countries for simple manufacturing. However they can develop and engineer products better than almost anyone else. Take Knipex for example. Innovative pliers designs and top notch manufacturing with very good fit, finish and durability. HF is making a knockoff in China but it isn’t the same. Could Knipex open a factory in Vietnam and make the same quality Plierswrench? I don’t see why not, they know the recipe.
As long as my tools are made in a free country I'm happy.
People crapped on Wiha moving some stuff to Vietnam. I've been happy so far. Vietnamese manufacturing is pretty good from my experience.
sparky 1971
Well-known member
No kidding? Once again, the context of this thread is that SK has moved between some or all of it's manufacturing from the USA to China and are still using USA and America in the marketing lingo.
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Vietnam is a "free" country?
Vietnam is a "free" country?
I know quite a bit of people who were born there... Civil liberty is pretty decent compared to other countries... Politically not so much.
Yeah. Milwaukee Tools does the same along with Ram trucks amongst many others. Foreign owned “American” brands making products outside the USA for sale inside the USA. Buyer beware.
vssjim
ALLIANCE MEMBER
SK under Ideal underestimated the cost of rebuilding the brand and had a massive outlay of cash with SK, Western Forge, Pratt and Reed and a handle company they bought and spent to refurbish all the above. They should have really done more on the sales and marketing end as I thought what they did was flawed in direction. They took forever to get a GSA sales number and relied too much on places like Grainger to sell where they had been really a diverse sales outlet company for Auto Parts stores and Tool truck dealers and even hardware stores along with the industrial suppliers like Grainger and all went away with the bankruptcy. They needed to reach out to vendors that had been burned in the past and fix it as they would do the selling for you once up and running again but it wasn't my company it's just what I saw as I have been buying SK tools back from the SK Tools the Great Ones era in the very early seventies and lived through the 4 owners and now we have this. I have said it before the SK Tools of the Dresser Industries days while not the largest selection but a sold good tool that you could buy many places in any town and get support easy and they marketed and sold their brand to many types of industries and it worked. Ideal also underestimated the lack of revenue from the Eddie factor at Sears and loosing the massive Sears Craftsman sales and not being paid by Eddie on many of the products already. Western Forge, SK and Pratt and Reed and they stated it would make it work without sales to Sears but that was not true as history has shown us. It's all in the past and I hope that Wright and the US Proto survive but it has to be run properly and know your markets and make it happen.
I love these threads, very entertaining . . .
"its the Boomer's fault!"
"its the lazy kids fault!"
"It's the consumer's fault!"
"it's the greedy businesses fault!"
Discussion that's worthy of popcorn, with extra butter.
"its the Boomer's fault!"
"its the lazy kids fault!"
"It's the consumer's fault!"
"it's the greedy businesses fault!"
Discussion that's worthy of popcorn, with extra butter.
Or, just go do something else, that is actually productive. 
My wife an I were discussing how dreadful it actually was to be working in a factory, back in "the good old days".
She did a short factory stint after high school and her hands were bleeding and blistered, from production work (winding coils). She got out of it by reading aloud from a x-rated novel she found somewhere. Apparently the other workers were entertained enough that they didn't mind doing her share of the work.
Those that made a career of it, ended up in the street anyway.
My wife an I were discussing how dreadful it actually was to be working in a factory, back in "the good old days".
She did a short factory stint after high school and her hands were bleeding and blistered, from production work (winding coils). She got out of it by reading aloud from a x-rated novel she found somewhere. Apparently the other workers were entertained enough that they didn't mind doing her share of the work.
Those that made a career of it, ended up in the street anyway.
Was that the norm? What time period? Seems to me, "factory work" built the middle class in America, post WW2, for 3- 4 decades.
2ndGearRubber
Well-known member
So they swap the warehouse employees 3X per year? That seems pretty "low" for all the concern about "huge turnover" at Amazon. A lot of entry level jobs do that, some shops will do that with the entire staff. I would figure the average McDonalds with 8 employees on a shift definitely turns at least 8 people over a year, 12 people doesn't sound crazy and that's 150%.
I would figure at least 10% don't even show up for the first day.
Late 1970's
1980's when when all of the factories started going away.
Probably depends on the factory. Chevy? Rolls-Royce, Allison, Boeing? Sure. Wabash Foundry or Wabash Magnetics, H.K Porter, thousands of small factories, jobs never looked all that middle class to me. Many of the workers were transplants from rural KY and WV, areas that were even more economically stagnated.
When I lived in CO, I remember hearing lots on what a ****** place to work, Western Forge was.
Can I get a COO check on that butter?!?
Vs. today? I have friends/family that work in health care, I.T., software, marketing, sales, education. Almost all complain about their '******' jobs for one reason or another.
So your factory work anecdotal experience is from the tail end of prevalent manufacturing in America. No real surprise then.
I'm still not sure how you can argue that manufacturing work built the middle class in America.
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Easy, because I never stated it did. In, fact you did.
There are (were) plenty of jobs in the "middle class" that were not factory production work. Those crappy factories are the only ones I had in my county. Most rented or owned small houses on the south side of town. Didn't seem "middle class" at all
There for sure were factory jobs, where "Average Joe" had a pretty nice life.
Easy, because I never stated it did. In, fact you did.
Sorry, I meant *argue against that manufacturing built the middle class . . .*
I'm sure.
neophyte
Well-known member
Official US inflation numbers are gimped, and routinely have nothing yo do with reality, particularly if you live in an area were housing prices have hone up massively, like a major city.
$7.50 in 1994 may be around $15 an hour using official inflation numbers, but it’s $93 using the alternative Shadow Stats inflation numbers.
I find the Shadow stats inflation numbers high, so I usually split the difference, which still might put the inflationary value at around $40+/-.
At $40 an hour, one paycheck a month or so would probably be a month’s rent for a crappy studio apartment that doesn’t have much room, and is in an area were you have the occasional homeless person sleeping near your apartment, but not too many muggings or shootings.
I presume in a more rural area, rent may be cheaper, but expenses for a vehicle, and gas, and maintenance may be way higher, and absolutely necessary.
Most people think the younger generation is stupid.
The reality, is they may be better at doing salary math quickly, and realizing the pay is much sh!ttier for similar jobs than it used to be.
There are also other issues that come into play.
A lot of schools don’t have shop classes.
If you’ve done shop work, and know you’ll get dirty, you may be more willing to accept it quickly.
Sort of like shoveling **** out of horse stalls.
Someone who grew up riding horses will know what to wear, and how to quickly clean and maintain the stalls.
Someone who didn’t isn’t going to want to get their feet covered in horse **** for $3 a stall, especially if their don’t already have a decent pair of rubber boots.
If you gave dozens of horse stalls, and offer to show how the job can be done quickly and properly and actually profitably, and maybe front the cost of a pair of boots, or loan a pair, maybe someone will take the offer.
Probably depended on the area.
Muncie IN had some kick-*** factory jobs, Chevrolet, Ball Brothers Co., Borg Warner, delco battery. All gone of course.
Smaller towns town generally had smaller lower paying factories most gone as well.
neophyte
Well-known member
Sanap-On wanted to sell tools in Europe.
There were plenty of European tool manufacturers.
Snap-On’s solution, was to purchase one or more of Europe’s largest tool manufacturers, Bahco.
Bahco was probable “globalist” long before Snap-On, since they owned tool manufacturers across Europe, and were also producing tools in Argentina (wrenches) and I think elsewhere.
Snap-On then had European manufacturing for customers that insisted upon it, and a wide distribution network in the major high income sections of Europe.
This is sort of what happened with pre-Ideal SK.
Facom Tools if France purchased SK in the Mid 1980s.
I presume this was fone because Facom wanted US distribution, and SK had a wide distribution network, including Sears, which SK made Craftsman tools for.
The SK brand became SK-Facom, and sold both the US made SK tools, and the French made Facom tools, as well as tools made in Italy by USAG, which Facom owned.
Eventually there was some mixed manufacturing, with the US SK making tools for Facom, and Facom making tools in France in the traditional Facom green color, as well as the French works making some tools for the Craftsman brand.
At some point, Sears switched to Danaher as the main supplier of tools for Craftsman, although SK and Facom still made bits and pieces, like Flare Wrenches.
The SK-Facom tools at the time seemed to be widely available from industrial suppliers like Lab Safety Supply, and MSC etc.
The management at US SK purchased the SK tool company from Facom in 2005, and later that year, Stanley bought Facom, which means the SK management likely knew Facom was up for sale by the French investment firm that owned it, and that Stanley might be the likely buyer. (Why would Stanley need an extra US production facility when they already owned several or more).
SK management then fumbled the ball, and went bankrupt, helped by Amazon, who had started selling tools, and was basically selling SK tools for less than distributors paid for tools.
Ideal basically bought the assets and brand after SK went bankrupt.
This also screwed ip distribution for Facom tolls in the USA, because the stock of Facom tools SK had agreed to continue distributing in the USA got dumped on the market at closeout prices. (Although people who would not otherwise buy Facom probably got some deals and became Facom fans)
sparky 1971
Well-known member
Since I made $7.50 per hour in 1994 and was able to make it, granted it was barely, and if I were to be in the same situation today, at $15, I could still make it living the same way I did then, frugally, I'm calling BS. I don't make $93 per hour now and am able to support a wife that doesn't need to work and a 14 year old son and still buy whatever I want within my means. I own all four of my vehicles and will own my six bedroom home within the next five years with no other debt so. I can't afford to pay cash for newer vehicles, but I do get them paid off within three years tops, so, once again...BS to the nonsense your spouting.
Once again, and I've stated this at least two other times in this thread, everything is dependent on location and cost of living. In the mid to late 90's I lived in Dallas making $14.50 per hour and was able to pay $1200.00 rent and have a car payment as well as support myself. I couldn't afford to do much outside of work, but I was able to make it knowing that the pay day was coming.
$40 per hour wherever you are might be the equivalent of $20 where I am, once again, location is everything.
No, the younger generation, the 20 something kids that still live at home and are still coddled are lazy. If someone that is able bodied, living at home with mommy and daddy, not a student, and unemployed, there is not reason to not get a job, even if it's for whatever the minimum wage is in that area. If it was my kid leaving a permanent **** print on my couch, he'd be living under a bridge.
From what I've been told, by educators in the family is that shop classes started going away because nobody would take them. Schools push going to college no matter what. They don't tell the kids that there are no jobs available in the field that they got a $100,000+ degree in. They just think that since they have a college diploma they are too good to do anything that they don't want.
If they want to be a horse person, they are going to have to start at the bottom and work their way up, just like everyone else. If they don't like the field, they are free to find another job.
I wouldn't own my own business, even if it is small with around $300,000 in gross sales per year, if I didn't start out at the bottom making $7.50 per hour when the minimum was $4.65.
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sparky 1971
Well-known member
This thread has nothing to do with Channellock or Knipex. Yes, Knipex makes a fairly affordable tool that is at the top of the food chain and imports it to the USA. I don't know how they are able to do it, but I am grateful. Channellock used to make a fantastic tool, but in the last 20 years, it's turned to junk. The only tools they have that are worth using compared to the same thing 25 years ago are long nose and duck bill pliers.
It does have everything to do with SK being sold and at least a lot of production being moved overseas. People are upset about a once proud American company being owned by the ChiComms but since they couldn't make it in America, they gone and are probably going to be nothing more than a name in the next few years. Why couldn't they make it in America? Availability is one thing, but this day and age, the majority of people buy online. SK was available from many vendors, but it didn't sell. Why? Probably the prices, which you will find other threads in this forum where people are complaining about how much they cost. Almost as much as Snap On. There is more to prices than the labor to produce it, but when compared to a 12 year old Chinese kid that makes $0.30 a day to make the same thing that an American worker gets paid $200.00 a day for, that's a large part of it. The solution on GJ was always yard sales and ebay. Guys got their SK tools, but SK didn't get anything out of it. If the business is based on sales, and the sales aren't there it's hard to keep the doors open. If the people would have bought new tools from SK rather than running down to Home Depot for the cheapest POS Husky or Lowes for Craftsman and Kobalt, maybe SK would still be an American owned company, but I don't think Ideal did it any justice and it was doomed from the day they bought it. However, if it weren't for Ideal, this thread wouldn't be happening because SK was dead.
neophyte
Well-known member
I’m not complaining about “starting at the bottom, and working your way up”.
Part of the issue, is that employers want yo pay complete ****, but want employees with years of experience.
Some job offer I saw was $3-$4 to clean out, wash, and re-hay, or whatever you need to do to make sure a horse stall is properly maintained.
Supposedly someone who us good can do maybe 6 stalls an hour.
This still doesn’t seem like great pay, but it might be worthwhile for someone who likes being around horses.
The issue, is that horse farm owners seem to think this should be a skill job applicants already should know, and don’t realize that a huge number of applicants probably have no clue how to clean a stall, and then complain about the work training people.
However, being trained is the only way the job pays OK.
Meanwhile, Fast Food restaurants are likely set up knowing a lot of employees probably have no clue how that particular franchise’s “system” works, so they expect to, and have systems in place to train people.
Even back from the middle ages, up until the Civil War, when apprenticeships were basically close to indentured servitude, employers ( ie. The master training the apprentice), was usually responsible for providing clothing, housing, food, and probably a small amount of spending money, in addition to teaching a skill to the apprentice.
There were apprenticeships were someone had to pay the master to train the apprentice (sort of like paying for vocational training), but this tended to be for potentially much more lucrative skills.
If you’re expected to get paid less than minimum wage, to teach yourself how to literally shovel sh!t, for someone who wants just wants you to shovel sh!t, there’s literally no point, especially if your clothes get ruined in the process, and you have to spend extra on laundry.
sparky 1971
Well-known member
Farm work is a completely different animal. I don't know anymore, but here in farm country, farm hand pay was about 1/2 of minimum wage. There are only a couple of horse operations around me and those are summer camps so I don't know what goes on there for sure. If someone needs money and have nothing else to do, go to work. Even if it's a crappy job it's something to put money in their pocket until they get if figured out. I spent an entire summer wheelbarrowing concrete for new swimming pools for $4.65 per hour. It sucked, but I had a little money in my pocket and since I still lived at home, was doing better than a lot of people.
neophyte
Well-known member
Back when SK was owned by Facom, the Kobalt tools were made in the USA by Williams.
I forget wether the Husky tools were USA made as well.
As for why more people aren’t hunting down SK, I suspect it has a lot to due with few people outside of tool and and automotive forums knowing what or who SK is/was, except maybe older people, who have enough tools that they don’t really need the SK tools.
Younger generations know Snap-On, because it’s mentioned in the Fast and Furious movies, (or maybe because they’re gearheads, or follow the S&P 500 and are in to investing)
Getting tools mentioned on popular tool youtube videos, is probably the better marketing strategy now, especially if the tools test well.
The only reason I learned decades ago about Proto, Armstrong, and Facom, was because better industrial hardware catalogs like Grainger and MSC carried the brands.
neophyte
Well-known member
If you don’t get paid enough to afford clothes, food, and a proper place to sleep, there is no reason to show up for a job, unless there is a good chance for decent renumeration later from those skills.
This is literally mentioned in “The Wealth of Nations”.
Fedwrench
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Wow!! four pages of rambling 
must be the weather 
must be the weather sparky 1971
Well-known member
The kind of job you are using as an example is a job for high school aged kids that live at home. It's a job, not a career. Big difference. If an able bodied adult has screwed up enough that the only job he can get is shoveling horse **** for $3 per stall, there is something definitely wrong...
four.cycle
Well-known member
neophyte said:
Originally, the Husky Wrench Company of Milwaukee (est. 1929) made all of their own tools. In 1986 the company was acquired by Stanley Black & Decker.
At some point before (or after?
) the Stanley acquisition they were still making tools in country. I recently sold a U.S. made Husky 1/4" drive set which was made for Home Depot.===
Something which has popped up several times in this thread: "Snap-on"
It's a red herring in the context of this discussion.
Snap-on is not in the tool business. They are in the finance business. Making tools is just the vehicle by which they operate the finance business. If they were not in the finance business, at the prices they're charging, they'd be out of business in less than six months.
Be honest with yourself here.
S-K failed for a great number of reasons, but the primary cause of the demise of U.S. based hand tool manufacturers always comes down to labor costs. Always. Without exception.
Those "great paying factory jobs" which are recurrently mentioned didn't look all that "great" to me when I toured the Niehoff (Chicago), Oldberg Manufacturing Company (Toledo), Carter (St. Louis), Fenton (Gardena, California) and other manufacturing plants while I was still in high school.
I think my father wanted to impress upon me that sitting at a bench for 8 hours a day installing the same 6-32 x 3/8" machine screw into the same hole on the same model carburetor was not what I wanted to choose as a career path.
Or breaking down and cleaning used generator armatures, field coils and housings under a tin-roofed structure exposed to the elements. (That was our rebuilder in Enumclaw.)
At that time, every part we sold was made in Chicago, Michigan, Los Angeles, or one of the other manufacturing centers, most of which were in the midwest. Every. Single. One. The ONLY imported **** we sold was imported ****: fuzzy dice, Hawaiian kissing dolls, and other gee-gaws that idiots would shell out good money for.
Every automobile seat for every American car made up into the mid-1960s was made in Los Angeles. Every OEM tailpipe and exhaust pipe for Chrysler, Ford, and GM came out of that Oldberg plant in Toledo.
All of that manufacturing went out of country due to increases in labor costs and the imposition of environmental regulations that sent stuff like chrome plating over the border into Mexico. Master cylinders and wheel cylinder and caliper casting all went up to Canada.
It would not have made one bit of difference what S-K or Ideal did - there was no way they could reduce the amount of money they'd have to pay their help.
S-K was never a Snap-on - they weren't in the finance business.
S-K never hoped to be a Wright - they didn't go after military, industrial, and marine business.
S-K would never be a Wilde, who finally figured out that they needed to stick with what they did well and stop trying to be all things for all people (which inevitably leads to a LOT of outsourcing.)
Fedwrench is right - this thread is getting a bit long in the tooth.
But Sparky's statement above is still true:
Those bitching about S-K not being made in country are the same people who refused to buy S-K from S-K because "it's too expensive."
Be honest with yourself.
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C'mon, this is ground-breaking info!Wow!! four pages of rambling
Anyone know how the Olsa ratchets are selling? As they’re basically the same as the SK labeled ratchets it would answer some questions about SK’s ability to be profitable.
By the time I knew much about SK they weren’t significantly better than Craftsman to warrant the price and close enough to Snap On (used and sometimes new) I would just jump straight there and skip SK entirely.
By the time I knew much about SK they weren’t significantly better than Craftsman to warrant the price and close enough to Snap On (used and sometimes new) I would just jump straight there and skip SK entirely.
I read this all the time on here but don’t find it true in real life. My local schools have shops classes and students can even enroll in vocational classes at a vo-tech school in the city and spend part of their school day there learning trades.
My son is finishing up high school and takes some shops classes along with AP STEM classes in preparation for attending a 4 year school to pursue an engineering degree.
My kid is working for a nearby BTO grain farmer after school and weekends and makes $15/hr. He shovels grain, fixes broken equipment, assembles new equipment, runs a grain cart during harvest and drills cover crops. The pay is good for driving a couple miles from home and the hours are flexible. He could maybe make a little more driving into the suburbs to work retail or fast food but he really loves doing what he’s doing.
Way back when when I was a youngster walking beans and detasseling corn paid teenage kids really well.
$3 or $6 or $9 the result is the same- you’ll
be living in a cardboard box dowm by the River.
sparky 1971
Well-known member
My local school which is rural, has shop classes too. They tried doing away with them and turned the class rooms into something for the music and theater department. Then enough parents complained that they built an 72' X 120' building for shop. There is an automotive section complete with lift, wood working, and welding. The four welder receptacles they had weren't enough, I was hired to add eight more, which is overkill. The schools in the city, my sister in law has been a teacher in one for 22 years, did away with shop classes because there wasn't enough interest. I have a cousin that teaches somewhere in PA, same thing. My brother has a friend I've never met that used to be a shop teacher somewhere around Minneapolis, he was given the option to teach something else or retire when shop was eliminated. He's now a cop.
Good for him. The stupid example given about shoveling horse **** for $3 per stall equates to about $18 to $21 per hour if the kid wants to move. If he or she wants to feel sorry for themselves and complain the whole time about how they are only making $1.50 per hour, that's just too bad cry a river to someone that cares. It's no different than piece work for a welder.
I detassled corn one summer in about 1983. It paid $2 per hour, but since I was 12 years old, it was just fine. No adults, other than the farmer himself ever detassled corn that I am aware of and I am right in the middle of corn country.
The jobs that pay that are entry level, non skilled work that are perfect for kids that live at home. Those kids need to get out and learn about earning money and realize the amount of effort it takes to make a car payment and the insurance that goes with it as well as filiing the gas tank or pay a cell phone bill. As I already stated, if an able bodied adult has to resort to something like that, tough ****. Would you rather have them sit on their 30 year old *** in their moms basement playing video games and collecting welfare? I don't. If someone doesn't want to work, and there is nothing wrong with them other than they are lazy or "too good for those jobs", shoot them. They have nothing decent to provide.
This whole thing has derailed and has actually gotten to the point of being absurd, especially when the stupid horse stall example was given. It started out by a statement that manufacturing in America is pretty much dead, other than a few niche markets. Even if facilities could pay people a really good living wage AND turn a profit, Americans for the most part, wouldn't do it due to their entitlement. I know some would but most in the age group that would be needed wouldn't be willing to get their hands dirty. I worked for about eight months in a factory putting a nut on a bolt for combine heads all day long before I was hired by my first electrical contractor. If I remember right, I actually took a small pay cut when I switched from a job to a career. If factories went ahead and produced something that can be delivered from another country but cost even 25% more, for the most part, Americans in general wouldn't buy it. Prove me wrong.
And, what do you have to say about someone starting at the bottom, making minimum pay at first? Plumbers, carpenters, electrician, HVAC techs, none of them start off making anything close to decent money, but the only way to the top is by starting at the bottom. Mechanics do the schooling and some of them start off doing oil changes and tire repairs/replacements. Those don't pay very well either, but if someone wants the better job at the end of the tunnel, they have to put in their time at the bottom of the food chain. As I already stated, I started out at $7.50 per hour in 1994 and could barely make it. That is about the equivalent of $15 per hour now, I could do it if I was single, but it would be tough. It took four years, getting small raises along the way to get to where I was making decent money, but if I wasn't willing to work for $7.50 per hour then, I wouldn't be where I am now. If someone isn't willing to go to work doing the same thing now for $15 per hour, how in the blue hell are they going to wind up as a top of the pay scale journeyman?
four.cycle
Well-known member
RE: This whole thing has derailed and has actually gotten to the point of being absurd
so let me toss this out here for you to chew on:
when my ex-wife retired in 2016, she was being paid $47.50 an hour (plus benefits, which included 100% medical and dental care.)(she was the "executive assistant" for the big kahuna at one of our big medical outfits in Seattle.)
most of her time was spent organizing the boss's schedules, reading his emails, and making coffee.
I remember her telling me one time "Hey, if he wants to pay me $47.50 an hour to make coffee, I'll be happy to make coffee!"
so let me toss this out here for you to chew on:
when my ex-wife retired in 2016, she was being paid $47.50 an hour (plus benefits, which included 100% medical and dental care.)(she was the "executive assistant" for the big kahuna at one of our big medical outfits in Seattle.)
most of her time was spent organizing the boss's schedules, reading his emails, and making coffee.
I remember her telling me one time "Hey, if he wants to pay me $47.50 an hour to make coffee, I'll be happy to make coffee!"
dnschmidt
Well-known member
S-K having a new low is impossible. In the sixties there was a song by Walter Jackson named "It's an Uphill Clime to the Bottom." which is where S-K has been forever it seems.
sparky 1971
Well-known member
This has gone beyond the factory wages and into a realm of stupidity. As long as we are there, how about you enlighten all of us as to why a high school aged kid that isn't involved in every sport imaginable, or a young 20 to 30 something adult that is living at mommy and daddies house won't get a job, even if it's a measly $15 per hour flipping burgers? It has nothing to do with working in a factory which is what the context was with the adder that Americans in general, don't want to do that type of work, no matter what the wages are.
And, if reading comprehension is above your level, you can go back to my posts and you can see that I didn't label an entire portion of anything. I said things like most, majority, etc. I know there are people that are willing to work, there just aren't very many of them.
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