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36 WheelsOfGrace.com Issue 35 POLARIS SHUT DOWN VICTORY MOTORCYCLES Victory Motorcycles is the victim of friendly fire. Parent company Polaris Industries announced in January – to most surprise - that it was shutting down the make to concentrate its efforts on its recently revived, and very successful Indian Motorcycle brand. Victory was launched as a Harley-Davidson competitor 18 years ago, but has been unprofitable in recent years. e company decided that its Indian Motorcycle brand has better growth prospects, Polaris CEO Scott Wine said. Polaris reported, it lost money on Victory in three of the past five years aer sales of the heavyweight motorcycles peaked in 2012. e brand represented only about 3 percent of Polaris' total sales. Jefferies analyst Trevor Young said the move was a surprise, but it will likely help Indian Motorcycle sales. e Indian brand is second only to Harley-Davidson in the market. About 400 dealers nationwide sold Victory motorcycles, although about 150 of those also sell Indian motorcycles. Polaris' plants in Iowa and South Dakota will continue producing Indian motorcycles. It's not clear how many jobs will be lost at those plants with the end of Victory production. e company's Slingshot roadsters are made in Huntsville, Alabama. PRESIDENT TRUMP MEETS WITH HARLEY-DAVIDSON President Donald Trump met on February 2, 2017 aernoon with executives from Harley-Davidson, a company that has long proudly manufactured its heavyweight motorcycles in factories across the United States. But Harley-Davidson has outsourced a different type of work —information technology — that has thrust the company into the debate over high-skilled immigration. Harley-Davidson signed an agreement with Indian tech staffing giant Infosys in 2012 to take over parts of its IT department. To handle the project, Infosys opened a new facility in Milwaukee, where Harley-Davidson is based. About 125 positions were eliminated at Harley- Davidson in the process. And workers who applied for a job at the Infosys facility claimed they were discriminated against in favor of South Asian employees. According to the complaint, Infosys relied heavily on workers with H1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to hire from abroad in highly skilled fields in which there are a shortage of American workers. But the suit argues that there should have been plenty of qualified workers available, such as the ones who just lost their jobs at Harley-Davidson. Attorneys for the workers are seeking class certification. Infosys declined to comment. Infosys is "filling a disproportionately large percentage of its workforce with individuals of South Asian race... even when there are qualified individuals available in the United States," the complaint states. Richard Strong, director of IT at Harley- Davidson, said the company strongly encouraged Infosys to hire its former employees. e changes were part of a broader reorganization of its technology department, he said, and the company added a net total of 135 workers in even more highly skilled positions. "Everybody had the opportunity to reapply for those positions," Strong said. "It was never a cost-cutting exercise. It was more of a realignment and retooling." MOTORCYCLE