Sign of the times
 

Saw this in another forum... for your information.




Brunswick boat plants to suspend production

EDGEWATER, Fla. – Most of Brunswick Corp.’s U.S.-based fiberglass manufacturing plants will suspend production during July, the company said in a statement yesterday. Sea Ray and Boston Whaler have already filed notice with employees. The employee furloughs do not affect non-production employees such as administration, marketing and customer service.

Boston Whaler Inc. will temporarily layoff 250 employees between the end of June and the end of July, according to a recent article on the Orlando Business Journal’s Web site.

Sea Ray will furlough the production portion of its 1,800 employees in eastern Tennessee, a story on knoxnews.com said today.

Although Boston Whaler is the ninth Brunswick Corp. boat brand or company to consolidate, cut back or cease production in 2008, CEO Dusty McCoy anticipated these moves earlier this year in an interview with Boating Industry.

In a statement released to Boating Industry, Brunswick indicated Boston Whaler and Sea Ray wouldn’t be the company’s only boat builder to slow things down this year.

“In managing our business, Brunswick is – and has been – producing fewer boats and engines to reduce marine pipeline inventories in the face of continued weak retail demand for boats,” Brunswick said in the statement. “As part of this effort, we have been taking downtime at all of our plants at various times this year.

“These actions are part of managing a cyclical marine business. At Brunswick, we will continue to closely monitor the marine market, and act accordingly.”

Boating Industry
Tuesday June 17, 2008

Its a true shame, our great country can't live on borrowed money forever.

Have you seen the price of a Whaler today? A 17 Montauk lists for 28K! They built such a good product that a 10 year old one with new power is just as good or better than the new one (new has more plastic/less chrome/stainless etc).

So for Joe Consumer to buy a new Whaler it will run almost 30K (taxes/insurance) and he got 17 feet of invisibleness on the water. A big Whaler can be 250K and once again it is nothing special on the water, the women won't be hanging out at the gas dock begging for rides!

Read that sea ray was coming back out with a 22 pachanga

I said a last year this is going to get worse before ity gets better. I got started in this biz right after the luxury tax debacle and this stuff makes that look like Junior high.....

We are as busy as we've ever been...granted we can't ask for $80 an hour shop time but at $70 its still good.
A lot of tool shops have folded and we are servicing all the fall out.
As long as the tooling is still made in Asia..we get to make them right after the molder gets his a s s in the corner.
All this makes me want a newer Fountain now with the buyers market, but with what I learned it would be better to pay off the house note and save up a good part of the down stroke for the new one.

Yep,
We know a couple of employees @ Sea Ray who have already been laid off and a couple of more who are going to be furloughed!! Tought times are ahead for alot of people!:(
Dean

Tough times indeed.

My employer announced last week that the employees in several departments will have their hours reduced to 30 per week at 10 hours a day. Some people had the option of reducing hours while it was mandatory for some entire departments. Those that are reduced will still be considered full time and not lose any benefits.
Before this announcement we were trying to go to 4 ten hour days but the home office rejected the idea.
Hopefully business will pick up soon and everyone can come back.

Iggy,
Yeah it going to be really tough in Brevard co. between Sea-Ray laying off, and KSC retiring the Shuttle in 2010, it's going to get real ugly!:(
Dean

Edgewater is only 25 miles from here, and it's not a big city at all. 250 bluecollar workers are now unemployed. I feel for them and their families. 250 people out of work in Edgewater, will hurt that town quite a bit. If I'm not mistaken, they build Sea Rays just north of here around Palm Coast. If so, I'm sure they are feeling the pain also. Sad state of affairs. :)