Locking pliers to be made in USA again

Cap'n Jack

Cap'n Jack

Final Approach
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Cap'n Jack
10 years ago, Newell Rubbermaid closed the manufacturing plant which produced Vise-Grip pliers and moved all production of these pliers to China. 300 people lost their jobs in DeWitt, NE, half the population of the town.

Since then, if I needed locking pliers, I just bought the Harbor Freight brand because I felt they probably came out the same factory and I didn't need to give anyone more profit margin for moving jobs out of the USA.

Apparently, Malco will make vise-grip type pliers in the same factory again. They are just producing prototypes now.

According to information published earlier this year by the University of Wisconsin-Stout's Manufacturing Outreach Center, DeWitt will be the manufacturing site for Malco's new Eagle Grip locking pliers, which will hit the market next spring.
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https://journalstar.com/business/lo...e_b5c5feec-7d1f-5a20-ba11-b9ebfc8bb582.html#1
 
I'll buy them—if they are better than the imports and reasonably priced. I usually have twenty or so pairs around (I weld stuff).
 
Made in the USA, assembled with imported components.

The US plant will will probably only screw in the adjustment screw and zip tie to the asian printed packaging. Price will be double the imported vice grips but you will have that warm fuzzy feeling that you fed a Mexican family that assembled it while on a work visa.

Edit: tongue in cheek
 
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texasclouds said:
Made in the USA, assembled with imported components.

The US plant will will probably only screw in the adjustment screw and zip tie to the asian printed packaging. Price will be double the imported vice grips but you will have that warm fuzzy feeling that you fed a Mexican family that assembled it while on a work visa.
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Perhaps so, but they supposedly have the original tooling at the plant in NE. The article purports that they are hiring workers that used to make the vise-grips.
Double HF prices? If they are quality, I'll pay it.
 
This story reminds me of Master Lock moving back to the US. One machine produced the lock, packaged it complete with individule combination. The number of people actually working at the factory was next to nothing.

Automation has now unemployed the people making $8 a week.
 
Yeah, this is always a tricky topic. All of the Big 3 car makers touted cars "Made in America" in the 90's. Mexico and Canada are America and a lot of the work was done there. Made people feel good though...

I have employees in India, China, and Mexico. My company would not survive if I had all of my employees here. India is about 1/4 the cost for a buyer, China is about 1/2, and Mexico is about 1/3. We do build the Mac Pro computer in the USA though and keep a lot of people employed! I'm seeing more and more automation coming though.

People who don't work in the industry don't understand that things like tariffs don't change where parts are purchased, they just force us to hire more employees overseas, use more automation here, and pass on any additional cost the end-user.
 
People love when their products get exported to other countries but hate it when anything gets imported. Gotta love it.
 
SkyDog58 said:
People love when their products get exported to other countries but hate it when anything gets imported. Gotta love it.
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Hard to find a reasonable balance here. Too much production goes offshore, jobs are lost here which harms the economy.

47PILOT said:
The only reason ANY company relocates is because it makes good business sense.
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Define "good business sense", please.
Is it "We need to offshore production to stay in business"
or
"We need to offshore production because, although we are already profitable, we can make a bigger profit margin by moving production overseas."
 
I don't think we are going to return to the golden age of truly well made U.S stuff back before over regulation here made it make better business sense to export the manufacturing. Tariffs alone won't put quality back into Made in U.S.A. We have to get rid of the cause of why we can't make it high quality here and sell for affordable prices. And I doubt even Trump can make that happen.
 
Rushie said:
I don't think we are going to return to the golden age of truly well made U.S stuff back before over regulation here made it make better business sense to export the manufacturing. Tariffs alone won't put quality back into Made in U.S.A. We have to get rid of the cause of why we can't make it high quality here and sell for affordable prices. And I doubt even Trump can make that happen.
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As many have pointed out before, the golden age might not be as golden as we remember it. I grew up poor, just like all of my friends. We had a small, run-down house, used cars (that you'd better know how to work on), cheap clothes, etc. We were well-fed, warm, and didn't complain, but times have changed. Now everyone I know lives in a big house, has nice new cars, very nice clothes, and maybe we're a little more than well-fed!

If we went back to a simpler lifestyle, maybe we could make less money, and manufacturers could build products here again. Most of us aren't willing to go that way though. Times have changed and companies have adjusted.
 
jkaduk said:
Isn't the goal of any business to maximize profit? Especially publicly held ones?
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Sure. But I'm looking at a macro-economic view. Ship enough jobs overseas and it makes it more difficult to sell stuff here. Each job lost is at least one customer lost, depending on the product. OTOH, no CEO will use such a macro view.

I'll will probably correct itself, somehow. It has in the past.

As someone mentioned earlier, automation does the same thing. Assuming that self-driving vehicles actually do become a thing. It will be interesting to see how jobs and society changes. 3.5 million truck driver jobs gone; about a million taxi/bus driver jobs gone too. Parking lots may become much smaller too- go to the big airport and send the car home.

In the meantime, as long as the new tools are good quality and aren't excessively expensive, I'll support people here.
 
I don't want to get too into this because it's going to inevitably turn into politics but.... as long as we have a situation where the difference in costs to make a thing are so much cheaper in other countries that it is still significantly cheaper to have stuff made on the other side of the world and brought here on a boat we've got a problem.
 
cowman said:
I don't want to get too into this because it's going to inevitably turn into politics but.... as long as we have a situation where the difference in costs to make a thing are so much cheaper in other countries that it is still significantly cheaper to have stuff made on the other side of the world and brought here on a boat we've got a problem.
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The difference is largely our willingness to subsidize the non-working, working class.
 
If I ever wear out my vise grip pliers that were made in America 50+ years ago I'll give these a try.
 
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