Honda Hiring Hackles Hoosiers
Just-Auto [sub] reports Honda's catching flack over hiring practices at their new Greensburg, Indiana factory. No, it has nothing to do with unions or affirmative action; this time it's the state's legislators who are whining. Honda wants to only hire workers who live within a 20-county area (about a one-hour drive) around the new plant. Representatives whose constituents were excluded from applying don't like "granting state incentives to companies that selective exclude certain Hoosiers from even applying for employment." A representative from the governor's office stated that in exchange for the incentives, they only asked that Honda hire state residents. She added that the state had no plans "to prescribe hiring practices to private companies." Even with the geographic restrictions, over 30K people applied online for 2K jobs. The new Honda plant is set to open in early '08 to build 200K Civics per year.
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It's been long accepted in hiring that past performance is the best available indicator of future performance. Given that, Honda should just simply say that UAW workers are not qualified based on the lack of quality in the products that UAW companies produce.
Honda's claim that the 50 mile limit is related to people getting to work would hold water if it weren't for their disqualifying applicants who live beyond that distance and commit to moving within it if hired.
With over 30,000 applicants for 2,000 jobs why should Honda change it's policies to allow for more applicants from a wider geographic region? For those who commit to move, would Honda then be in the position of needing to verify where someone lives like a school district does? If you want to be angry about geographic restrictions, you should be absolutely over-the-top mad that school districts decide which students go to which school instead of students and parents choosing for themselves. BTW, if Indiana wants to make sure that there are no more plants or expansions in Indiana then they should just keep making a stink about this. I'm sure there are still plenty of incentives available to build factories in the southern states.
Wow jolietjake too bad the UAW workers make the Toyota Corolla and Tacoma. Maybe they should just ban engineers from GM and Ford based on their past incompetent performance