York & JCI

[sargent york]

I also worked for York New Orleans for 16yrs and am in agreement with HVACFITTER. I worked for Ned Hebert who was the best Service Manager I ever worked for! Before the buy out some new people come into York and started pushing the good managers out and pushing the"national account garbage". Things then started to go down hill under their watch. Most people now realize they were setting things up where they could sell York Int. and pad their own wallets. I made the mistake in staying on for a couple years, then when I had enough and left, they entered federal law suite against me! they had no case and knew it, but they wanted to hurt me by making me hire lawyer. Well lawsuite was dropped but I hold them in the greatest contempt and will bite them ever chance I get! Working for York New Orleans was the best years of my working years and 2 years @JCI was the worst.

[Tmac1622]

Sergeant York
Jci also took me to federal court to stop me fom working in my trade but the diop**** Milton Heather of the branch here in Tampa did not read the UA Jci national contract that stats "no UA member can sign any legal binding contract "non compete" outside the national agreement or that document will be nul and void". I kicked jci's but in court.
The UA sent down their Big Gun attorney from Washington DC to represent me.
Ha! JCI was counting on me having to foot the bill in the fight against them.

[Nuclrchiller]

I was with York one month shy of 20 years when JCI bought us out, and this is the first time I have ever heard of some large debt that could not be paid off. As far as being on "credit hold", that was usually because a local office did not have their paperwork in order, not because York could not pay their bills.

There are a lot of rumors about the demise of York, most are not true. What you need to look at are the "Golden Parachutes" that York's upper management had in place when the deal went down. For those of us that had York stock, we knew that we were not going to get rich investing in it,
but is was a solid investment. Lets face it, the dividends that the York stock was paying, was no where near what we got for that stock when JCI bought us.
JCI is many things, but stupid when it comes to money is not one of them. They saw that they were heavily over invested in their automotive division, and with the down turn in the automotive industry, they needed to even out their investments. When we were brought in to JCI for our brain washing, I mean indoctrination, they told us that they bought York because we had a much larger footprint in the global HVAC marketplace. Therefore it was a no brainer to buy York and start selling Metasys from an already established clientèle base.

For those of you that never worked for York, will never understand why there is / was such a hard time transitioning over to JCI. At York corporate, a lot of the people who ran that company on a day to day basis worked their way up the ladder. Some started in manufacturing, others in sales or a service office. There were product engineers that were second and third generation York employees. And for the most part, these people were always accessible if you needed something. In our field office, we were expected to take care of the customers needs. In other words, if their was a warranty problem, FIX IT, then we will figure out who owes for what later.
It was a great place to work.
We were spun off by Borg Warner, do you think JCI could do the same?

That last paragraph makes me think of Trane. I now believe the beginning of the end of the golden days of Trane came when the company went public. Stockholders are more important than customers, at least to the people in position to call the shots. I think this applies to many publicly held companies.

[Taicool]

Working for York New Orleans was the best years of my working years and 2 years @JCI was the worst.

Sir;
Totally agreed!

Ryan

[teamkudzu]

I was with York one month shy of 20 years when JCI bought us out, and this is the first time I have ever heard of some large debt that could not be paid off. As far as being on "credit hold", that was usually because a local office did not have their paperwork in order, not because York could not pay their bills.

There are a lot of rumors about the demise of York, most are not true. What you need to look at are the "Golden Parachutes" that York's upper management had in place when the deal went down. For those of us that had York stock, we knew that we were not going to get rich investing in it,
but is was a solid investment. Lets face it, the dividends that the York stock was paying, was no where near what we got for that stock when JCI bought us.
JCI is many things, but stupid when it comes to money is not one of them. They saw that they were heavily over invested in their automotive division, and with the down turn in the automotive industry, they needed to even out their investments. When we were brought in to JCI for our brain washing, I mean indoctrination, they told us that they bought York because we had a much larger footprint in the global HVAC marketplace. Therefore it was a no brainer to buy York and start selling Metasys from an already established clientèle base.

For those of you that never worked for York, will never understand why there is / was such a hard time transitioning over to JCI. At York corporate, a lot of the people who ran that company on a day to day basis worked their way up the ladder. Some started in manufacturing, others in sales or a service office. There were product engineers that were second and third generation York employees. And for the most part, these people were always accessible if you needed something. In our field office, we were expected to take care of the customers needs. In other words, if their was a warranty problem, FIX IT, then we will figure out who owes for what later.
It was a great place to work.
We were spun off by Borg Warner, do you think JCI could do the same?

In simple laymans terms this was a huge problem that cost York tons of money that most field guys never even grasped. At some point you have to quit giving the customer everything when it is not under warranty and make them pay. Yep, good for the customer and relations but what effects the bottom line will bite you in the butt more than the other yet it seems to this day some still do not realize this was a huge factor in York going downhill.

[york56]

JCI as a company doesn't really do any R & D what they do is when they see something of interest to them they just aquire them and then promote as if they were the innovators of this new found knowledge and that would be with any of there divisions they just buy up the companies , never did like JCI and never will.

[HVACFITTER562]

In simple laymans terms this was a huge problem that cost York tons of money that most field guys never even grasped. At some point you have to quit giving the customer everything when it is not under warranty and make them pay. Yep, good for the customer and relations but what effects the bottom line will bite you in the butt more than the other yet it seems to this day some still do not realize this was a huge factor in York going downhill.

When you are a chiller manufacture, taking care of the warranty work was your ticket to continued service after it came out of warranty. In 25 years with York and JCI, I have very seldom given any free work under the disguise of warranty. Once the chiller is up and running, I have never had a problem getting a customer to pay for what was a problem on their end. And over that time, that customer service, made York and JCI a lot of money.
Working as a factory rep is a lot different than working for an independent contractor! Along with customer service, you are working on your next chiller sale, air handler sale , control system sale , and all that equipment is York or Jci, not some off brand equipment.

[sargent york]

Some new people come into power at York near the end that started to screw up everything. They pursued the national accounts(Family Dollar stores,Nextel cell phone sites,even Parrot Ice machines). They hired other idiots to run these accounts. They also started trying to push the local offices into installing new equipment competing with contractors. Some moron thought it would be a great idea to start a building automation systems business. They lost there a&% on that and made Siemans and JCI along with other customers that bought York equipment upset. Then there was the great handheld gizmo that cost 40 million bucks and flopped! Giving a customer some part or little a little labor causing the company to have a finacial problem? Bul#$%t! Who is John Galt!

[jayguy]

...I think this applies to many publicly held companies.

correction...ALL publicly held companies. the board, CEO, CFO, etc. are voted in by the shareholders. the shareholders want higher stock prices so they can sell their stock for a profit. if you want to keep your job Mr. CEO...make the stock price go up THIS QUARTER not next year. shareholders do not care whether you make chillers or pens or chillers AND pens...just stock prices.

i am not complaining about the system, it just the way it is. someday, i will be one of those shareholders that wants a higher stock price.

[Trane_Dude]

The York office is just a block away from ours. Since the JCI buy out they lost virtually all their technicians. I talk to the JCI & York guys who are still there and they all say it sucks working there. This may be a local issue but this is what I hear. Locally; York is winning most of the chiller jobs buy WAY under pricing their equipment. The problem is they have no one to service what they sell. I've been at Trane for 17 years and I've seen this before with the local Mcquay office. With no one able to service the new stuff their reputation quickly tanked in the local market.

I don't like the stockholder mentality either but IR has been a good marriage with Trane (IMO). Like JCI, IR watches and tracks all expences on everything they do but Trane techs have vastly more technical support (electronically-on line) than ever. We have a dedicated technician web site with a massive database to work with. The bad is the corporate stuff but the good is the support improvements that have occurred. However, as we know, here today gone tomorrow seems to be the norm.

[bunny]

For those of you that never worked for York, will never understand why there is / was such a hard time transitioning over to JCI. At York corporate, a lot of the people who ran that company on a day to day basis worked their way up the ladder. Some started in manufacturing, others in sales or a service office. There were product engineers that were second and third generation York employees. And for the most part, these people were always accessible if you needed something. In our field office, we were expected to take care of the customers needs. In other words, if their was a warranty problem, FIX IT, then we will figure out who owes for what later.
It was a great place to work.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, this sounds so remiscent of Parker's acquisition of Sporlan and perfectly explains why so many great people left after said acquisition.

[jfridge]

I am in the same boat, No representation from ua or local, this has been going onfor 2 years. JCI will attempt to lock down all ex employees with proprietary intellectual agreement that ua members were forced to sign when jci took over york

[sargent york]

Jayfridge, they can't possibly win, they pulled that on me, but they didn't have any intel property they could show I was privey to! Our lawyer made them look very stupid. EMail me and ill give you more info. Address is byoung725@netzero.net

[basshound71]

Some new people come into power at York near the end that started to screw up everything. They pursued the national accounts(Family Dollar stores,Nextel cell phone sites,even Parrot Ice machines). They hired other idiots to run these accounts. They also started trying to push the local offices into installing new equipment competing with contractors. Some moron thought it would be a great idea to start a building automation systems business. They lost there a&% on that and made Siemans and JCI along with other customers that bought York equipment upset. Then there was the great handheld gizmo that cost 40 million bucks and flopped! Giving a customer some part or little a little labor causing the company to have a finacial problem? Bul#$%t! Who is John Galt!

I was in Nat'l Accounts and alothough it was the best job ever once you figured out all of the hoops you had to jump through there is no way you can charge 60 an hour and pay journeyman scale to change filters and do pms. Good gig while it lasted though.

[kreeger]

We had some chiller techs leave JCI and join our company. There was a threat to enforce some non compete agreements that they made everyone sign. Not sure if they actually followed through. Never heard of that before regarding a technician.

Talked to folks who were JCI and York pre merger and they all resent the takeover. Jci POV is that it hurt the stock price and the York POV was that the management and standards went downhill. None the less there are many outstanding techs still working for JCI and I suspect that the reputation varies greatly by branch.

[CraziFuzzy]

Purchases and acquisitions are just the nature of pretty much all industries at this point. It is good business practice to continually expand. The world isn't getting any bigger, so once a company is global, the only expansion comes at the expense of other companies. There are two options. Either company A expands in it's own right, completely wiping company B off the map, or company A merges/acquires company B, and integrates a few good things (like york's big chillers and R&D departments), and spits-out/reprocesses the redundancy (like York's controls line). This would have been common business practice for the last 200 years, if running a company the size of JCI was possibly 200 years ago. Modern communication systems are what makes the massive parent companies functional, which is why this practice has really increased in the last 25 years.

[JHM60]

In the State of La. JCI is a fading memory the only work they have in the Northern part of the state is their national account customers. The problem with JCI is they believe chiller tech are a dime a dozen but they have found out this is not the case in La. Corporate JCI's policies have caused their customer base and employees to walk away. I was a YORK chiller tech for 16 years and enjoyed the time I was there. 5 years after the JCI nightmare started I walked away with 4 other tech's they have lost many more sence then and have no chiller tech's left.

[acjourneyman]

I have been with Trane for 18 years and am lucky that we are still a franchise so there is no corp between me and my customer. I know that if JCI bought Trane I would not even work one day under them, that is how much I despise them.

[megohm]

The corporate JCI charges it branches interrest on parts and if the job is not complete within a certian time the whip as they call it eats all of the margin and you have to hear about it continuously, the nexgen craze also is a big flop that has costed the company a load, the big joke is that they have raised all of their labor rates in an area where competition is very fierce and have not listened to the local brances. I feel that eventully they will turn into a start up and warranty entity that will only have accounts by default. Very frustrating working for these jerks. I wish and so dose everyone want to return to the York days. JCI has a reputation of destroying companies it is just taking them longer with this one due to its size.

[york56]

The corporate JCI charges it branches interrest on parts and if the job is not complete within a certian time the whip as they call it eats all of the margin and you have to hear about it continuously, the nexgen craze also is a big flop that has costed the company a load, the big joke is that they have raised all of their labor rates in an area where competition is very fierce and have not listened to the local brances. I feel that eventully they will turn into a start up and warranty entity that will only have accounts by default. Very frustrating working for these jerks. I wish and so dose everyone want to return to the York days. JCI has a reputation of destroying companies it is just taking them longer with this one due to its size.

Agree 100% with you !