Heinz and Outsourcing

[Autobot77]

In my class today we had a discussion about outsourcing jobs.I mentioned Kerry was against it, but some guy claimed that Kerry said he's against it but his wifes co., Heinz does a lot of outsourcing of jobs. Is this true? Or is it another Repug lie?

[seaglass]

1. It's not her company, her family owns less than a 4% share

and does not have any participation in the management of the co.

[LTR]

2. Teresa doesn't own Heinz

Has nothing to do with it.

Plus, they do a lot of business in other countries. Including sales.

[IndianaGreen]

3. The Real Benedict Arnolds

Keep in mind that this is from the conservative American Enterprise Institute. I would look for corroboration from a non-conservative source before I render judgment.

The Real Benedict Arnolds

By James K. Glassman
Posted: Monday, March 8, 2004

Sen. John Kerry is fond of calling CEOs who employ foreigners “Benedict Arnolds,” after the despicable Revolutionary War turncoat.

But look at H.J. Heinz & Co., the family business of Kerry and his wife, Teresa. Of the 79 factories that the food-processor owns, 57 (a felicitous number!) are overseas. According to its website, Heinz is making ketchup, pizza crust, baby cereal and other edibles in such countries as Poland, Venezuela, Bostswana, China, Thailand and India.

Put hypocrisy aside. The traitors to American interests aren’t CEOs seeking to boost profits that ultimately lead to more hiring at home. The real Benedict Arnolds are Kerry and his colleagues in Congress, like Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Jon Corzine (D-NJ), who understand enough economics to know that outsourcing is trade and that trade--as David Ricardo figured out 200 years ago and as Hillary’s husband articulated in the 1990s--benefits both parties.

http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.20059,filter./news_detail.asp

[LoZoccolo]

5. Oh wow.

I didn't think that AEI would actually put their name on this hunk of ferocious bullshit.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LoZoccolo]

16. Actually, they don't technically lie, but they fuck with your head.

Sen. John Kerry is fond of calling CEOs who employ foreigners “Benedict Arnolds,” after the despicable Revolutionary War turncoat.

The issue is not employing foreigners so much as it's laying off American workers and then hiring foreign ones to replace them. Plus the food business has operated with more local factories for a long time - the issue is this new trend of taking jobs that say, just five years ago went to American citizens and putting them overseas when we have an unemployment problem.

But look at H.J. Heinz & Co., the family business of Kerry and his wife, Teresa.

See the Snopes article. Theresa Heinz isn't responsible, though it technically was the family business.

To the original poster: bring the AEI article as an example of Republican propaganda. Go to the this "scholars & fellows" page and let your fellow students know what kind of public figures belong to an organization that puts out this kind of misleading bullshit:

http://www.aei.org/scholars/filter.all/scholar_byname.asp

Notice Newt Gingrich is in there, Lynne Cheney, David Frum, and Richard Perle. And that's just the "scholars & fellows".

Charles Murray is in there, who put out The Bell Curve, that tried to show that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites.

[Avalux]

9. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article

In the real world, the first lady contender has little financial connection anymore to Pittsburgh's H.J. Heinz. She was married for 25 years to a member of the founding family, Republican U.S. Sen. John Heinz, until his death in a plane crash in 1991.

She chairs the Heinz Endowments, which still own stock but not enough to meet the 5 percent ownership threshold that requires notifying the Securities and Exchange Commission.

There's been no Heinz family member involved in the management of the business since the late 1980s, said company spokesman Jack Kennedy. And the family drastically reduced its holdings in 1995 in a secondary stock offering.

Even the Heinz Co.'s foundation is separate from the Heinz family endowments.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04041/271241.stm

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Would that be the same AEI known for hawking Dinesh Disousa

who believes ghettoization of African Americans allows them to rise to their level of arrested development?

Please IG, tell me your hatred of Kerry hasn't brought you to this.

[SharonAnn]

11. Food doesn't ship well and it's too expensive. Thus, food

proceessing companies have ALWAYS tried to make their food as close to the consumer and cheap transportation as possible. That's why they have overseas factories! They sell to overseas clients!

Think about shipping a case of ketchup compared to shipping a PC. The box takes up about the same space but the ketchup weighs ten times more. Also, the ketchup sells for about 1% of the PC. Not much profit margin there!

Don't bite on this stuff. It's the Karl Rove "fake truth express".

[DieboldMustDie]

28. "...outsourcing is trade and... benefits both parties..."

Strictly speaking, this may be true. But who are the consenting parties in this transaction? The American corporation that outsources is benefiting from cheap labor. The foreign corporation benefits and, in some cases, though certainly not all, foreign workers may benefit. American workers however, who never consented to this arrangement, are being totally screwed, and it's American workers that our government should be looking out for.

[LoZoccolo]

4. It's a lie.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/heinz.asp

Print it out, bring it to class, and read it in front of everybody.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Here is a statement from the Heinz company

H. J. Heinz Company Confirms Its Widely Held Public Ownership
And Non-Partisan Status

Pittsburgh, PA, March 22, 2004 – In light of some misleading speculation, the H. J.
Heinz Company would like to make clear that neither Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry, Senator
John Kerry nor any member of their family is involved in the management or board of the
H. J. Heinz Company (NYSE:HNZ). They have no involvement in the Heinz® Ketchup
business or any of the company’s other brands or products.

The H. J. Heinz Company, in accordance with its corporate governance policies, is a non-partisan
organization.

Neither Mrs. Heinz Kerry nor Senator Kerry nor any of the Heinz trusts or endowments –
either individually or collectively – holds a significant percentage of shares of the H. J.
Heinz Company. In 1995 the Heinz Endowments and family trusts sold a large
percentage of Heinz shares in a secondary share offering to diversify their holdings. As a
result, their current holdings are under 4 percent.

There is no connection between any philanthropic programs of the H. J. Heinz Company
and its Foundation and the Heinz family interests (including the Howard Heinz
Endowment, the Vira Heinz Endowment, and the Heinz Family Philanthropies).

Currently, 60% of the sales of the H. J. Heinz Company are outside the United States and
to accommodate those customers by providing facilities closer to those markets, the
company maintains a number of overseas facilities that provide products for consumers in
those markets. This allows Heinz to pack the freshest ingredients, tailor its recipes to
local tastes and deliver the final products in a timely and efficient manner. In the United
States, Heinz makes its flagship ketchup in factories in Fremont, Ohio; Muscatine, Iowa;
and Stockton, California.

http://www.heinz.com/jsp/presidential_statement.pdf

[Avalux]

7. LIE

but I think you already know that. Theresa Heinz has absolutely no say in the operations of the company. :hi:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. So is Theresa in any management capacity at Heinz foods?

If you are a student shouldn't you at least be conducting a bit of your own research?

[Avalux]

13. I think the original post is flamebait

Lots of 'em these days. :eyes:

[Autobot77]

22. See my post below... its not

[blondeatlast]

23. There is a stealth invasion tonight, I believe. Clever ones, but still...

[LTR]

26. I doubt the original post is 'flamebait'

This was too easy a point to debunk. Infiltrators would ask more asinine questions that would make many of us say :wtf:

This whole topic of Heinze 'outsourcing' is very important to bring up anyways.

Hope this gives you some good ammo, Autobot.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LoZoccolo]

18. I kind of don't mind it.

Because look how much we've come up with to counter it in the last however-many minutes. It didn't last unmitigated for very long, and now some more people know where to go when they hear the lie.

[Autobot77]

19. yeah,yeah

I actually did use Google but could not find anything relating to that point, maybe I overlooked something. If I overlooked some form of posting etiquette on here I apologize, there was nothing in the FAQs about posting a question. Not every question on heres going to be flamebait as one poster put it.

[blondeatlast]

25. SNOPES IT.

www.snopes.com

Required reading for all. If it walks like a rumor, and talks like a rumor, and comes in an e-mail, Snopes will have the 411.

this kind of thing sends red flags up for many experienced DUers. Doesn't mean you meant it that way, but the site-that-must-not-be-named-ers do this all the time.

[Autobot77]

29. May I make a suggestion?

I understand members of you-know-what-site disrupt this board, if thats the case maybe the administrators should ammend the rules or FAQs regarding posting of questions or have a board specifically for questions. That way whenever a poster has a question they won't immediatly be accused of being a disruptor.

My $0.02

[Autobot77]

17. I did

I couldn't find anything thats why I asked.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

21. Fair enough

[Avalux]

24. OK

so now you have the facts and will be able to counter what your classmate has said. :hi:

[Oilwellian]

14. It's a lie

Just ask the guy what Heinz plants were closed down in the United States and the jobs were outsourced elsewhere. This should explain Theresa Heinz'a relationship with the company:

http://www.heinz.com/jsp/presidential_statement.pdf

[alcuno]

20. My bottle of ketchup says it was bottled in the USA.

How can that be outsourcing? Outsourcing is when you take a product made in the US for US consumers, ship the job overseas or to Mexico, and bring it back to the US to sell.

All countries throughout the world produce their own food products or import them from nearby countries. Unless you can afford expensive imported products. Bottling ketchup really doesn't require that many workers; it's not like making a shoe or building a car.

[bonemachine]

30. Beat me to it

n/t

[bonemachine]

27. If you have overseas operations

to support your overseas customers, that's different than outsourcing.