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ECD's CEO, Mr. Mark Morelli, spoke at the Clean Energy Forum at the White House on October 28th, 2009. Ms. Cathy Zoi of the Department of Energy described that confab as “an evidence-based revival meeting." So let's look into some of the evidence offered by Mr. Morelli (MM) there:
Fact: Electrolux announced [cached]
in January of 2004 the closure of their Greenville, MI factory
(resulting in a loss of 2,700 jobs) and the move of operations to
Mexico. March 3rd, 2006 was the last day of production [cached] at the factory. That last day was about 3 years and 7 months ago, not a "couple of years ago."
MM:
"We now have two factories in Greenville, MI. These are Unisolar
factories. We have a total of five factories in Michigan today."
Fact: Five factories in Michigan? Maybe, depending on what one counts as a factory. According to the 10K
(page 22), though, other than the Greenville factories, there are just
two other completed solar factories - in Auburn Hills, MI (one of them
not producing due to being "upgraded"). But then, of course, there is a
big Unisolar assembly factory in Tijuana, Mexico, utilizing the cheap
labor there. As of June end, ECD, the parent of United Solar Ovonic,
employed about 1,800 people, approximately 700 of whom were located
outside the United States, according to the same 10K.
MM: "What we've done is we've reinvigorated these towns through employing folks."
Fact: Unisolar's Greenville plants apparently employ less than 500 [cached] (when they are not in a furlough), a far cry from the 2,700 jobs lost from Electrolux. Oh, and "only about 20 percent of the 400 jobs at the new plant, which opened in 2007, went to former Electrolux workers" [cached]. So much for reinvigorating!
MM: "These are good jobs. These are jobs that you could raise a family on. These are high-tech jobs."
Fact: The average wage in the Unisolar Greenville factories was projected to be $560/wk or $14 an hour. A presentation [cached] authored in April by Unisolar's HR manager in Greenville reveals on page 57 the actual wage scale: "Starting
entry wage for Production Technicians will be $13.00 per hour. Starting
entry wage for Production Associates will be $10.00 per hour; $0.75 per
hour shift premium for day shift; $2.75 per hour shift premium for
night shift; Future salary increases are performance based and will be
available 1) Upon completion of a six month day evaluation period, and
2) annually
thereafter; All Production Techs/Associates are eligible to participate
in the Annual Incentive Plan Bonus, which is based on specific
production metrics and payable within 90 days after fiscal year end if
financial and personal goals are achieved." Some don't like these wages [cached], arguing that they are "well below the $18.88 an hour average wage for production workers in the durable goods industry."
MM:
"One gentleman told me on his way home he doesn't want to wear his
Unisolar shirt from Greenville, MI, because he gets stopped often and
he is late for dinner on his way home because people want to thank him
for saving the town."
Fact: Well, the
people of Greenville may have been chasing the Unisolar "gentleman" for
quite the opposite reason this past Spring: "The company is also offering voluntary severance packages to employees willing to leave the company, a spokesman says" [cached]. And, maybe Unisolar should offer him some more "retraining" to "sixth-grade math"[cached] - after all, he should know that 400 is just 15% of 2,700, not 100%.
MM: "This recession is in fact hurting many industries, including our industry, as well."
Fact:
The real solar companies, like SunPower and First Solar, grew sales
year-over-year in the September quarter and were profitable. ECD
reported a 55% drop in sales and the company is losing money. It
appears Unisolar's troubles are not industry-wide.
MM:
"Every time I fly into any airport and I look out of the window and I
look at all these rooftops, there is nothing happening on those
rooftops."
Fact: That is actually good news.
Who wants the excitement of flying over the Long Beach Convention
Center in the morning of February 15th, 2008? On that day the Unisolar
laminates had ignited on the rooftop there.
MM: "80% of our products that we manufacture in the United States today are shipped over to Europe."
Fact:
ECD's CEO told investors on the earnings call on Monday that Unisolar
produced 33MWs in the September quarter, of which they shipped 13.9MWs
(17.8MW, if one includes MWs "shipped" but not recognized as sales).
Since Unisolar manufacture all their cells in the United States, even
if all the 17.8MW were shipped to Europe, that still accounts for just
54% of the products they manufactured in the quarter (17.8/33) , not
80%, so aren't the other 46% sitting in inventory somewhere in the
United States (or Mexico)?
MM: "We need to open that spigot."
Fact: ECD had negative free cash flows,
or a cash drain, of about $40mill in the September quarter. Since Mr.
Morelli came on board in 2007, the company has drained about $360mill
of investor money. The company faces a difficult dilemma. No wonder ECD have resorted to going to Washington, DC and offering free PV to politicians. A bailout is desperately needed, it seems.
