right before I walked away for good in September 2007, the Society was sending almost all of their literatrash and ragazines via worldly carriers instead of WT trucking. I worked the local literature depot once a month for literatrash pick up for 15 plus years....
WT Trucking has been nearly eliminated..they just keep what is needed to truck between facilities in NY....The society started this whole thing when they eliminated their warehouse/depot down in Texas long ago when they eliminated food service at conventions. I knew the CO who used to run that op.
Then they were sending literature to the assembly halls via WT branded trucks with Bethelites.... they would send trucks out with litteratrash and return with various supplies needed for the NY complexes.... the eventual goal was to also send ragazines that way too for local congos to pick up. Then they scrapped that idea when the congos that were further out cried about having to drive 3-4 hours to an assembly hall or other depot.
Pretty soon the WT trucks quit coming and everything was coming common carrier.... the society would ship LTL (less than load...meaning less than full tractor trailers) onto local carriers...that would send them cross country via rail...then another local carrier would pick up the LTL (several pallets, never a full truck) to the depots..... even if the society has a full trailer to send to a single location, it is still cheaper to send it via local carriers/rail than use their own trucks. Literature, Bethelite personal effects, convention crap...all comes this way now.
Then a brother was brought in to do a business analysis of the Society's US operations......I think in the 90s/early 2000s..... and found out how inefficient the Society was....even with volunteer labor.... the last I had heard from my inside sources about 18 months ago (which are all gone now)...this is the business plan the society is using ...it was a 10-20 year plan.
I can easily see the Society consolidating magazines printing in one location, books in another. Health care has nothing to do with it as far as cost-savings. Layoffs do. Worldly corporations consolidate similar operations into a single location to benefit from efficiencies of scale. The local cable company has direct sales in one location, tech support in another, billing in another...etc... when it used to be they would have all of the ops in each location doing everything...
Brooklyn will soon go away....that WT sign means nothing. DUMBO didnt happen.... too much local objection over lack of street level retail....turning those blocks surrounding that proposed tower into a street level ghost town and even more properties with no taxes coming in.... the burrough residents want WT out and taxes coming back in.... the burrough taxpayers have to make up for what WT does not pay. Maybe their individual taxes will go down (or at least not rise so fast) if WT properties go back on the tax rolls because the overall tax burden will be spread out a bit more.
Ranapao (sp?) officials only had to look north (walkill and patterson) and south (brooklyn) to see what was coming and wisely vetoed WT coming to town.
So Plan C is what is being discussed now....use under utilized facilities in Canada....max out facilities at Walkill...keep the country club open at Patterson to keep the GB fat and happy..... and hunker down for the Big A....
(whatever happened to their Florida operations other than West Palm?)
just my thoughts.... in reality I only care because it makes an interesting case study for my business classes...lol WT can kiss my a$$ otherwise.
Snakes ()
