Rumor of happenings between Ontario and RAT Cutlery

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As a new member here, and somebody who personally knows most everyone employed at Ontario Knife, I thought I should say a few things.

1. Ontario Knife is by no means "huge" or even "big". They have about 80 employees.
2. The management, and the Vice-President in particular is of questionable character and is currently answering charges of Governmental corruption in Supreme Court.
3. Ontario Knife is a known environmental polluter and sweatshop operator.

Do not feel one bit sorry for them. They were about bankrupt when Servo-Tronics bought them and the only reason they stayed in Franklinville was because they have a workforce that will work for $7/hr.

freefranklinville.com
 
Wow. freefranklinville.com is an interesting site. I take it Bob Breton, Ontario VP, did not get to be mayor or is the election not over with? Did not know that there were governmental corruption charges. Interesting. Very interesting!

As a side note, if you or an anonymous source could mail me any documentation you may have to jeff@ratcutlery.com or to the address below I would like to send this on to my lawyers.

Jeff Randall
60 Randall Road
Gallant, AL 35972

Thanks
 
R.A.T. said:
Wow. freefranklinville.com is an interesting site. I take it Bob Breton, Ontario VP, did not get to be mayor or is the election not over with? Did not know that there were governmental corruption charges. Interesting. Very interesting!

As a side note, if you or an anonymous source could mail me any documentation you may have to jeff@ratcutlery.com or to the address below I would like to send this on to my lawyers.

Jeff Randall
60 Randall Road
Gallant, AL 35972

Thanks
Click to expand...

Just a word to the wise, in the event of litigation, anonymity is about as valuable as a warm bucket of spit and just as easily kicked over. Subpoenas, discovery, and judicial contempt citations pretty much assure that anonymity doesn't ever last save for certain privilege situations most business litigants do not enjoy.

Never send anything into a possible litigation venue you are not willing to back under oath. Sources will be rooted out.
 
It's a sad day when I'm the voice of reason.

I think the rumor mill is in full swing. sorry freefranklinville but you have been a member here for about a couple of days and I think your creditability needs a check. I skimed over the freefranklinvill.com web site. A few interesting point is you have a total of 60 members, I don't think this is the majority for Franklinville.

Next Key point I have not been able to find anything on the web about
2. The management, and the Vice-President in particular is of questionable character and is currently answering charges of Governmental corruption in Supreme Court.
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I don't want to be the one to call you on this but where is you evidence and or sources.

You could be a disgruntled employee that got fired.

Come on guys we were all loven and using Ontario Knives a few weeks ago. Let Jeff and Mike take care of there business. At this point there has been no letter delivered, if and or when it happens they will take care of business. RAT Cutlery and Ontario Knives are both good folks and they need to work things out between themselves. In the mean time take some advice Jeff will keep you updated, you can count on his information to be straight. The crap (and I'll call it crap untill its proven to be true) like freefranklinville is spreading needs to be disregarded.

This isn't a game, there are other peoples livelihoods at stake here. From the workers at Ontario to the retailer that sell their products. tearing down a company like Ontario is not good for our country. I think it would be a sad day if we were talking about Ontario closing their doors like Camillus did.

Jeff and Mike I apologize for coming into your forum with this attitude. I want you to know it is not a reflection of how I feel about you guys, your still tops. It all about American Heritage and the destruction of another American Knife company. I hope all works out in the end.

Tom
Chestnut Ridge Knife Shop
 
P.S. When I here words like
3. Ontario Knife is a known environmental polluter and sweatshop operator.
Click to expand...
That sends up a liberal red flag.

Tom
Chestnut Ridge Knife Shop
 
I agree with Tom. I don't want to see anyone go out of business, including us. Hell, that's how this whole thread got started. When someone gets us some hard info on what's going on then we'll see if it's beneficial to our cause. I'm not writing anything off at this point, nor will I believe something simply because someone posted it here.

Now, with that said...Even though I don't want to see anyone go out of business, the owners, managers CEOs and Presidents of these companies need to consider their employees before they go making stupid decisions. This whole thing has never been about the employees of a company.
 
Well said CRKS and Jeff.

No one wants to see anything be run off (overseas) or closed but business should be on the up-and-up and honest.

I fully stand behind Jeff and Mike and their products and respect the way they operate.

Ontario could learn something (else) from them (beside the fact that they design great knives) on how to operate in business.
 
Whilst I am not intentionally trying to be contrary, I do take umbrage with a few of the statements here.

I, for one, was not using and loving Ontario's products up until a few weeks and neither were countless others. The only saving grace in their company was the RAT line and that has been desintegrating for some time now. At this past SHOT, I saw RAT-7's where the slabs hanging over the tang were twice as sharp as the blade edge and the lasering seemed to be hurredly knocked out over lunch between the 3rd and 4th martini. Hell's bells, my own RAT-7 has a nickel-sized spot in the belly of the blade that's inexplicably at least half as thin as the rest of the knife, as if a piece of steel is just flat-out missing!

I have seen and heard stories of individuals and teams sending all of their Ontario products back for a refund (just read another SAR team yesterday). As I've stated before, I've bought 4 of their pocket knives, which all failed on me. (Like an Alzheimer's patient, I kept going back for more for some reason, which I still can't fathom.)

Ontario has had entire batches of product of such poor quality that they were unshippable (although my suspicions are that they eventually shipped.) Heaven knows how bad that lot had to be that even THEIR QC people rejected them!

The bottom line is customers have been fleeing Ontario for some time now. They've been flocking to better quality, i.e. RAT Cutlery. Hence the lawsuit against Jeff and Mike.

And while I'm certainly no advocate for the environment, I'm equally not an advocate for keeping a mediocre company in business just so its employees have jobs. There has been much discussion of Ayn Rand and free-market economics on this forum. If you are truly an adherent of laissez-fair, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman-style open markets (as I most decidedly am), you must understand that it can be a harsh taskmaster. America did not become great by creating and patronizing businesses simply so that people can have jobs. That sort of thinking is what is undermining America. And bluntly, it's one half-step away from socialism. Employees of Ontario have no one but their own management to thank if they lose their job, and while it may be a bit acerbic to say so, they should consider themselves lucky to have defied the laws of free-market economics this long, making money putting out inferior products by a mismanaged and allegedly morally compromised company. It's harshly Darwinian, I'll grant you, but in the end, my opinion is it's better for the country because it forces us to put out better quality. The sports world is a good analogy: you produce (i.e. quality), you command insanely lucrative contracts. You fail to produce, you're looking for work hawking Ronco products in the 2am slot. (Although personally, I think the salaries in pro sports are completely ludicrous, the market gladly bears them, so there you have it.)

Also, just because an American company goes out of business, does not mean that its product or service automatically goes overseas. Why can't another American, smarter, with more integrity, harder-working, etc., open a new company producing the product but doing a better job at it?. The RAT line will survive Ontario and will not go overseas--why? Because Jeff and Mike are more dedicated to quality than Ontario. As long as they continue to be, they will enjoy success. I don't know if Ontario will survive this or not (they certainly seem to be slouching toward Gomorrah), but if they do fail, it will not be the fault of the $.16/day 8-year-old Chinese kids grinding their hearts out 90 hours a week, it will be Ontario's own fault for forgetting that this IS America and Americans vote with their dollars, they aren't compelled to buy inferior products or to tolerate inferior service.

The point of all of my seemingly besotted rambling is that: America doesn't need any more mediocre companies.

Of course, this is my own opinion and I could be totally wrong ;)
 
I'm a Joseph Schumpeter fan myself, one of his most colorful phrases being that capitalism works best as "creative destruction." The new business generally overtakes the old, the brave ones usually outperform the timid ones, the smart kill off the stupid, and the innovative bury the staid.

RC is the future, Ontario is a dinosaur. It's playing out right now.

A "new" Ontario wouldn't embrace knuckle dragging lawsuit threats. A "brave" Ontario would have talked to the RAT team before the expiration of the exclusivity in the past contract and paid them in a manner reflective of how well the collaboration rejuvenated Ontario. A "smart" Ontario wouldn't have wasted time and money launching a monumentally stupid trademark two-fer. An "innovative" Ontario wouldn't have waited until a fortunate 2002 collaboration to make a credible field knife series.

Ontario probably deserves to die. If this misstep doesn't do it, some future management stupidity certainly will.

Mixing cheap bastards and moronic idiots in a boardroom echo chamber brings nothing but disaster to a company.

If there is anyone with business acumen at Ontario, they are either powerless or they are asleep at the switch.
 
Expatriated, VERY, VERY, well said! I couldn't agree more! The American consumer deserves a good quality product, PERIOD.:mad:
 
Expat and Boats nailed down our Objective philosophy dead on the head. We're not looking to put Ontario out of business. Never have been. And even though we don't even wish that on them, they will eventually do it to themselves not because of a bad workforce but because of bad management, lack of decisions, and paranoia. And it's not for Mike, myself, or anyone else to save them. I've heard a lot of talk here about their good employees. I know they have some good people there. The RESPONSIBILITY to keep them rests solely on the shoulders of Nick, Bob and the rest of Ontario management.

And while I do expect Ontario to weather the storm and remain in business for now, this whole ordeal is a real lesson in Capitalism. It is the consumer who will always drive the market and ultimately keep you in business or sink you. If you do not pay attention to your customer, shrug him off when he has a problem, tell them one thing then do another, put out a shoddy product, then offer dead silence as your warranty when the customer contacts you, etc., then you will not stay in business long.
 
Boats said:
Never send anything into a possible litigation venue you are not willing to back under oath. Sources will be rooted out.
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You can absolutely send things anonymously on the net.
Just use a *.ru proxy server accessed through a public library computer and it NEVER gets traced back to a single individual.
The US does not have subpeano rights in Russia, and even if they did....
good luck finding out who used a public library PC to write a specific e-mail using a web based service and using an international anonymous proxy.

Of course, if you are the only one with said access to the information distributed the source can be surmised without even tracing the e-mail chain.
But the above method will keep you clean if the information itself does not implicate you.
 
I think when I said "anonymous" it was taken the wrong way. I simply meant if someone has an accurate document they wanted to get in my hands, then I don't care who it came from as long as the document is accurate. I know better than take anyone's anonymous email as any type of fact. As for the rest of it, I could care less about any type of "he said, she said" stuff.
 
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