Re: IH's demise. . . McCardell's strike

Posted by Al on April 07, 2004 at 10:38:17 from (205.244.113.10):

In Reply to: IH's demise. . . McCardell's strike posted by Mike on April 06, 2004 at 22:45:50:

In my opinion after reading A Corporate Tragedy, if you want to trace the demise of IH back to the beginning, you would have to go back to Fowler McCormick and JL McCaffrey. Fowler had grand plans for the company to be leaders in trucks, construction, refrigeration, and farm equipment. Problem was he didn't spend enough time at headquarters in Chicago, and McCaffrey took control of the board in 51 or so. Only thing McCaffrey understood was sales. That is why there were dozens of variations of truck models, etc. etc. They rushed the 460 and 560 to production to make sales. And they sunk zillions in construction equipment in an attempt to take over Cat. They tried too hard to be "all things to all people."

Ultimately I don't think it was IH products that killed the company, it was management, or lack thereof! Deere wanted to license the Fast Hitch from IH, IH said no so Deere got the three point hitch instead. Had IH let Deere have it, I would bet it would be the standard today. And I say that, not being an overwhelming fan of Fast Hitch. IH fixed the cavitation problem on the 300-400 series engines with the water filter kit. People make such a big deal over the 50 series, and it was the best tractor line of the time, but it should have been introduced in at least 1976 and maybe sooner but IH simply didn't have the money to get it off the drawingboard. As it was nobody could afford to buy one. IF IH could have been doing everything else right, management-wise, they could have built the 1086 until 1988 if they wanted to and still survived. IH should have stayed out of construction altogether, and got out of refrigeration sooner. That would have freed up so much operating capital to improve farm equipment. I think you could make a case for IH getting out of the truck business alltogether as well. Truck ate up a lot of resources IH could have used to advance the farm equipment side. It was almost like two separate companies, competing for resources.

Back to your original question: as to the strike, I don't have any sympathy for the IH employees that lost their jobs. That strike was about union greed, pure and simple. All those guys had to do was read an annual report from IH, Deere, and Cat and they would have seen IH was non-competetive and needed to gets its house in order. Instead they struck over mandatory overtime. OVERTIME!! I could see it if IH was trying to cut their pay, but as it was it was a rediculous issue. I am not sure IH could have survived without the strike, but it was I believe the last nail in the coffin. Once IH sold off ag, they began to recover pretty quickly. Maybe if the strike hadn't ruined management's "feel" on what the market was doing they could have made the necessary changes. The big losers in the strike were IH's customers. IH lost a lot of heavy truck business to fleet buyers during the strike. And I remember first-hand as a kid not being able to even get parts for our IH equipment.

AS to McCardell, I think he was a victim of circumstance. Had the economy not tanked, I think he was on the right track. It is a shame IH couldn't have lured Lee Iococca over, history might have been re-written. But again whoever had come in in 77-78 (I forget the exact year?) was basically charged with trying to save a sinking ship.

My $1.99
Al

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: IH's demise. . . McCardell's strike dhermesc 11:16:02 04/07/04 (1)
  • Re: Re: Re: IH's demise. . . McCardell's strike Guy Fay 11:54:31 04/07/04 (0)

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