Timesizing® Associates

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Downsizings in April/2000
[Commentary] ©2000 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

4/29/2k  3 downsizings reported, totaling 100 lost jobs (with possible 1400 more) + unspecified -

1. Dairy Mart [Convenience Stores] says it will sell or close 246 stores, Reuters via NYT, B3.
   ...which employ 1400 workers, in an effort to improve its profitability and reduce its debt. Dairy Mart, which has a work force of 4,000 and operates 601 stores in 7 states in the Midwest and Southeast, said it would sell or close stores that did not meet its profit criteria. It also said 70 jobs [5% of workforce] would be cut at company HQ in Hudson, Ohio, and at regional offices....

2. Park Electrochemical Corp., NYT, B3.
   ...a maker of circuit board components, closed its plumbing hardware unit, eliminating about 30 jobs.

3. Kitty Hawk Inc., NYT, B3.
   ...Dallas, the largest company that carries freight solely by air, said it would suspend international operations on May 1, as it tries to cut costs and raise money to stay in business.

4/28/2k  3 new downsizings reported, totaling 291 lost jobs -

1. Internet service provider to cut work force 15%, Wall St. Journal, B6.
   OneMain.com [of] Reston VA..\..plans to reduce its workforce of 1,500 by 15% [225] in the next year as it integrates operations....

2. Hachette says it will close a magazine, by Alex Kuczynski, NYT, C1.
   Jack Kliger, CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, announced yesterday that he would close Mirabella magazine. Mirabella is aimed at women
   • who are no longer 24 years old and
   • who care passionately about literary criticism and...contemporary philosophers - and...
   • [who care] passionately about where to buy those just adorable hot-pink flared leather pants.
   [I.e., wealthy, over-30 women.]
   The problem is, there may not be enough women in the world who care about both...to guarantee a magazine's success....
   [Here's another example of the increasingly strained search for affluent markets, as wealth concentrates in the top brackets and the consumer base at large dwindles.]
   The magazine employs about 40 people. Hachette is offering severance packages that editorial employees described as surprisingly generous; the company is also trying to place the employees in other Hachette magazines....
   The magazine did not make any money for the News Corp. [since its May 1989 first issue], nor did it return a profit after Hachette purchased it in 1995.... Mirabella's advertising pages and revenue have both dropped sharply in the last year.... The magazine has been dwarfed in the last year by the success of other women's magazines, like the Meredith Corp.'s More magazine...that has a more single-minded editorial voice. Mirabella's newsstand sales have dropped...for the 6-mon. period ended Dec. 31, 1999...by 39% to an average of 80,790 copies a month from an average of 134,292 a month... and circulation has not moved from about 550,000 since 1997.
   Ad executives said the editorial mix of the magazine was never coherent. Roberta Garfinkel, director of print advertising at McCann-Erickson, said..."It vacillated between being...a serious read and a beauty and fashion magazine, and first it was older, then it was younger, then it was a combination...." [She] added that the marketing dollars that Hachette has invested in [John-John Kennedy's] George ate away at Mirabella's chances..\..
   Grace Mirabella [former] editor in chief of Vogue..., who still retains the title of founder on the Mirabella masthead, said yesterday that she was disappointed....
   [Guess a Vogue spinoff just can't compete with a Kennedy for snob appeal. Well, there's those that cozy up desperately to the rich, and those that snuggle up desperately to bigness. Below, a bigness cuddle-up.]

3. CMGI unit, MyWay.com to cut work force 10%, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, E5.
   ...A majority-owned unit of CMGI Inc. in Andover [Mass.] said it plans to lay off 26 employees as it changes its strategy to focus on sales to large corporations. The cuts...come 3 weeks after CEO Jeff Cunningham resigned.... MyWay is a descendant of PlanetDirect, which once sold portal services for smaller ISPs... but recently MyWay signed agreements with Bell South and FleetBoston.... CMGI...expects to offer jobs to most laid-off employees at other CMGI units.
   [But be sure to jar them with a completed layoff so they'll grasp at anything you bend to offer them.]

4/27/2k  2 downsizings reported, totaling 1,730 lost jobs -

1. Philips to cut 1,500 jobs, AP-NY-04-26-00 19:01EDT via AOLNews via RadioTony.
   Ottawa, OHIO - A plant that makes television picture tubes for Philips Electronics plans to lay off 1,500 workers, or 80% of its work force, beginning in 2001, and move most of the work to Mexico. A final decision will be made by the end of May, said Dave Thompson, spokesman for the Philips Display Components Co. subsidiary. He said the company has a tentative agreement with a site in north central Mexico. The cuts would take place over a three-year period, Thompson said.
   Philips, the world's largest maker of picture tubes, is transferring the work to Mexico to cut costs and because of declining sales prices, Thompson said.... The plant makes 4.2 million picture tubes each year for television sets made by Philips and other manufacturers in the United States and abroad..\..
   [Well, this move to low-wage, low-consumption Mexico, will create further downward pressure on their sales prices and worsen their position in the longer run. And with the pace of change accelerating, the "longer run" is getting shorter every year.]
   The decision also allows the company to move near more of its customers, Thompson said. About 90% of the companies that provide the plant's customer base have moved or are planning to move to Mexico, he said.
   [Brilliant. Moving closer to just-moved corporate customers when the moves themselves shrink the end-market for the whole industry.]
   About 300 employees would remain at the [Ohio] plant to make large picture tubes, but most of its work would be moved to Mexico, Thompson said. The plant's 4 main manufacturing lines will be moved one at a time, Thompson said.... Workers at the plant were notified of the planned layoffs Wed. [4/26].
   [Never mind Perot's "giant sucking sound" as American jobs sweep down to Mexico. How about the giant sucking sound as the once high-level American consumer base seeps down the drain and never quite gets replenished by the new subsidence-wage employees in our 3rd-world neighbor?
   [This 7 pm 4/26 story went unreported in the Times & the Globe on 4/27 so we injected it on 4/27, but then the Times picked it up a day late on 4/28: "Philips to cut 1,500 jobs in Ohio, moving work to Mexico," AP via NYT, C4.]

2. Gerber Scientific Inc., NYT, C4.
   ....South Windsor, Conn., a maker of automated manufacturing systems, said it would cut 220 to 240 jobs, or about 8% of its work force, by the end of July.
   [So let's say 230 jobcuts.]

4/26/2k  1 downsizing reported -

1. Tecumseh Products says it will lay off 1,500 workers, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of engines for lawn mowers and snowthrowers said yesterday that it would cut 1,500 jobs, or about 8% of its work force, and close a plant in Somerset, Ky., as it cuts back its compressor operations. The reductions will be made over 18 months. Tecumseh Products [Co.], which makes compressors for air-conditioners and refrigerators, has about 18,000 employees. In the first quarter, the company took charges of $23.3m related to restructuring and layoffs....

4/25/2k  2 downsizings reported, totalling 110 vanished jobs + unspecified -

1. ATG Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Fremont, Calif., a waste management company, said it would cut its employment rolls to 30 from 140 at its plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and try to relocate displaced employees to its other operations.

2. Jitney-Jungle Stores of America Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Jackson, Miss., which operates grocery stores, gas stations and liquor stores, said it had closed 7 grocery stores in the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala., markets.

4/22/2k  1 downsizing reported, totalling 50 vanished jobs -

• A Silicon Valley laboratory shuts down - Research effort tried to shape technology still years away, by John Markoff, NYT, B2.
  PALO ALTO - An ambitious...effort to create computer industry breakthroughs ended in failure today when the Web site of the Interval Research Corp. was replaced with a stark press release stating that its co-founder, Paul G. Allen, had closed the advanced computer lab after 8 years.... The name of the [company] was intended to symbolize the researchers'..\..10-year, $100m...efforts to develop technologies that would have an impact in 5-10 years.... The original idea was to mimic the Xerox Corp's legendary Palo Alto Research Center..\.. "If you look down the road, what you see is the pervasiveness of high-bandwidth data communications and completely inexpensive computing power," Mr. Allen said at the time.... High Bandwidth communications is the ability to send computer data, voice and video at very high speeds..\.. "If you combine those two things, there are many interesting things you can do".... The...lab...was formed with the intent to spin off business enterprises. To date, the spin-off model has largely failed, with no dramatic successes having come from the years of research..\..
  The lab...which at one point had swelled to employ as many as 150 \yesterday\ told 30 of its 50 remaining employees that they would be offered positions at a smaller for-profit advanced broadband development group that will be established by Vulcan Ventures, Mr. Allen's investment group....
  [Hey, at least they had the only real kind of courage there is - the courage to fail.]

1. Winn-Dixie [Stores] says it is cutting 8% of work force, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The 6th-largeset U.S. supermarket company said yesterday that it could close 114 supermarkets and cut 11,000 jobs...in a bid to improve profits.... Winn-Dixie, based in Jacksonville, Fla., has a payroll of 130,000 and 1,189 stores in 14 states in the South and in the Bahamas. It said the closings and layoffs would result in pretax charges of $450-550m....
   [Less payroll, less consumer base.]

2. Dominion [Resources] to cut 700 jobs in connection with merger, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The utility holding company said yesterday that it would cut about 700 jobs in connection with a completed merger..\.. Dominion Resources...based in Richmond, Va., said it expected to save at least $75m in 2000 through job cuts, mainly in corporate support services. Dominion completed its merger with Consolidated Natural Gas of Pittsburg on Jan. 28.... About half of the employees whose jobs are being cut have left the company.... Further reductions are expected though early retirement, a voluntary severance program, or layoffs after June 30.
   [Again, the lethal merger-downsizing connection.]

3. Geon to shut Newton plant to save $1m year, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, C9.
   ...One of the world's biggest makers of vinyl compounds will close a vinyl-film plant in Newton [Mass.] by mid-2001 to save $1m annually. The plant employs 80 people and had been part of O'Sullivan Corp., which Geon bought last year for about $191m in cash....
   [So, again the lethal merger-downsizing connection except here, it looks like Geon just bought O'Sullivan to shut them down, sort of like GM bought all those steam locomotive plants in the 40s and 50s to just shut them down, and who cares about the employees or the effect on the national consumer base.]
   The Avon Lake, Ohio, company said it will sell the site.... Geon expects proceeds from the sale to exceed closing costs.
   [Oh that's good. That's very good. Clearly it can't be the value of the site that is motivating this bad for employees, bad for the consumer base, deal.]
   The company has made no decision on job cuts...
   [Of course, employees are such an after thought....]
   ...and is in negotiations with the labor union....

4/20/2k  3 downsizings reported, totalling 730 jobcuts -

1. Sallie Mae to cut 300 [8%], AP via Boston Globe, C10.
   ...The company best known for funding student loans will cut...125 at its HQ in Reston, Va., and 75 at its Braintree, Mass., office. The remaining 100 slots will be eliminated through attrition and leaving vacancies unfilled. Sallie Mae, the commonly known name for SLM Holdings Corp., employs about 3,700 people....

2. Dollar General Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...Goodlettsville, Tenn., a discount retailer, said it planned to close its Homerville, Ga., distribution center, affecting about 260 jobs.

3. Willamette Industries, NYT, C4.
   ...Portland, Ore., a maker of lumber and paper, said it would eliminate 170 jobs when it closes a Dallas, Ore., plywood plant in June.

4/15/2k  2 downsizings reported, totalling 1350 jobcuts -

1. Solectron to move 850 Atlanta jobs to Mexico, AP via NYT, B3.
   [A maker of electronic equipment] plans to move...more than half of its work force [57%] from its cellular telephone manufacturing plant in suburban Atlanta to its plant in Guadalajara, Mexico. Of the cuts, 475 are full-time jobs and 375 are temporary.
   ["Temporary" or "part-time"??]
   The plant employs about 1,500 people. Fred Forsyth, president of Solectron Americas, said yesterday that the company was forced to move the jobs to Mexico to stay competitive in the cell phone business.
   [Fred doesn't have very much imagination if he thinks of reducing his own and others' domestic markets to stay competitive and not a paycut for himself and his top executives - who are only going to lose their jobs as domestic markets shrink anyway.]
   Solectron employs about 6,700 workers in Guadalajara.
   [All of whom get probably less than half the pay of their American counterparts, and cell phones aren't going to be the first things they buy with their pittance.]
   Solectron, which is based in Milpitas, Calif...said the jobs would be moved by July.
   ["Moving" jobs out of an economy in the future - by CEOs who don't quite get the equation between "payroll" and "markets" and want to play the float between when they downsize and when their markets shrink - will result in automatic 100% tariffs on all goods and services their companies import, adjustable automatically to double import prices relative to the average prices of domestic counterparts if any. In short, you gotta pay to play. If you don't want to foster economy A with payroll therein, you're going to find it very expensive to sell in economy A. The tariffs will flow into subsidies for domestic counterparts. In the ecological age of long-term sustainability, no unsustainable corporate "strategy", however "competitive" in the short run (e.g., playing the float between market-destroying practice and actual market destruction) will lack its swift and automatic check.]

2. B. F. Goodrich to close Texas facility with 500 workers, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   ...A maker of aircraft parts and specialty chemicals said it planned to close its landing-gear plant in Euless, Tex., eliminating 500 jobs ... partly because demand for landing gear has declined..\..
   [Declined in general or just for Goodrich because management dropped the ball on marketing?]
   The facility, which will close in October, employs about 400 union workers and 100 in engineering, sales, marketing and administrative positions. The job cuts represent about 2% of the company's worldwide work force of 27,000. Goodrich...has struggled to stem declining profit.... The company [is] based in Charlotte, NC....
   [Goodrich needs to learn a lesson or two from its neighbor in Charlotte, Nucor Steel.]

4/13/2k  1 downsizing reported, with unspecified jobcuts -

• Smithfield Foods, NYT, C4.
  ...Smithfield, Va., said its John Morrell & Co. unit would complete the purchase of Farmland Industries Inc.'s Dubuque, Iowa, pork plant by June 9 and end slaughter operations there.

• Inso shares drop as company announces revamping, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
  ...The maker of electronic-business software ruled out a sale of the company and said it would sell all but its DynaBase Internet publishing system unit.... DynaBase [is] text conversion software that companies can use to publish information online. The Boston-based Inso also said Stephen Jaeger...would resign as CEO and Kirby Mansfield...would step down as president and COO as it reorganized its management. The company will close its headquarters next month and consolidate operations in Providence RI where its eBusiness Technologies unit is based.
  [Notice we very very seldom give ages of people we mention (note dots after execs' names in para. above). We want to model the economy of the future which is no longer agist (or sexist, racist, or any other -ist). When timesizing programs replace seniority (on-the-job age) with versatility, age will become completely irrelevant - and we can seriously start reaching for a society where, for everyone, mortality itself becomes merely optional.]

• Sign says it all ["MACHINISTS Lodge 776 - ON STRIKE UNTIL..."], caption, AP photo via Boston Globe, E2.
  ... - Striking Lockheed Martin Corp. machinist Darryl Coleman sits by a sign outside the firm's Fort Worth operations yesterday. Workers went on strike after they rejected a 3-year contract offer from the company, their union said. Unit 776 represents 2,300 Lockheed workers in Fort Worth, and 500 who lost their jobs under recent layoffs.

1. [Merger-downsizing connection -]
   CompUSA set to dismiss about 1,500 employees, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   ...Dallas[-based retail computer chain that] also sells its own custom-made PCs \and\ was bought last month by Grupo Sanborns SA of Mexico said yesterday that it planned to dismiss about...7.5% of its work force to reduce expenses. The company is eliminating 2,150 back-office and other support staff while adding 650 in sales and customer service. Some of the employees whose positions are being eliminated will receive new jobs. CompUSA has been reorganizing to cut costs after being acquired by Grupo. [So, not only is Mexico responsible for Perot's "giant sucking sound" as U.S. jobs fly south across the border, but now it's extended its reach north across the border to cut us further down to size - third world size, that is. Well, we've got a ways to go, and we're doing it so well ourselves anyway.]
   The company abandoned its Cozone.com Internet sales Web site last month.
   [There goes another one, after bad news about DrKoop.com, NatureCompany.com and ongoing red ink from the prophet of profitlessness, Amazon.com.]
   CompUSA...has 218 stores.... An average of 4-5 positions will be cut from each of its stores....

2. [Internal merger -]
   Activision, a video games producer, cutting jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   ...A producer and distributor of computer and video games, announced reorganization plans yesterday that will result in a charge of $66m and an unspecified number of job cuts. The company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., said it was consolidating its Expert Software subsidiary into its Head Games unit, eliminating nearly all jobs at Expert and discontinuing several of its product lines. The revamping is aimed at accelerating development of games for next-generation consoles and the Internet....

3. Dismissals planned in consumer long-distance unit, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   The AT&T Corp., the largest U.S. long-distance company, said yesterday that it would lay off workers in the consumer long-distance division after retirements and resignations failed to reduce the staff sufficiently. The company, seeking to cut $2B in costs this year, said in a letter on March 31 that employees with at least 5 years of service and whose age and service totals 65 years will get expanded retirement benefits for leaving in a so-called force management program.
   [Appropriately named. How the cheerleaders of the "free" market love applying force to their employees! "Freedom" for them, "force" for others.]
   Others have 60 days to find a new AT&T job, or be dismissed.
   [So, "unspecified layoffs."]

4. Cutbacks in FleetBoston, Dow Jones via NYT, B4.
   ...The nation's 8th-largest bank said [yester]day that it planned to close 23 branches in Massachusetts and 3 in New Hampshire as a result of last year's merger of Fleet Financial Group Inc. and the BankBoston Corp. FleetBoston, based in Boston...
   [At least they got one thing right.]
   ...said it would try to keep the branches' employees....
   [Anyone else find it ominous when a big corporation announces it's going to "try" to do something good? We're setting this down as "unspecified layoffs."]

4/07/2k  2 more downsizings reported, totaling 10,000,030 jobcuts + unspecified -

1. Social combustion in China, editorial, NYT, A24.
   Reports are now reaching the United States of serious unrest in the northeast Chinese mining city of Yangjiazhangzi almost 6 weeks ago. An account in The Washington Post this week described 3 days of violent rioting over job cuts and corruption that overwhelmed local police forces and continued until regular army troops arrived....
   [So, unspecified jobcuts 6 weeks ago. But that's not the worst of it by a country mile -]
   Worker and peasant protests have become increasingly frequent.  Market "reforms" [our quotes - these are the kind of downsizing "reforms" that have brought Japan into recession - ed.] like the privatization of large state companies produce unemployment and social dislocation.... State companies are scheduled to lay off more than 10 million workers before the end of this year....
   [And we want to grant "most favored nation" trading status to this disaster waiting to happen?!? (We won't count these layoffs in with our YTD totals because none of the Chinese companies involved are named.)]

2. UtilPro, NYT, C4.
   ...Atlanta, a unit of AGL Resources Inc., owner of Georgia's largest natural gas utility, plans to cut about 30 jobs, or 10% of its work force.

4/06/2k  2 downsizings reported, totaling 900 additional jobcuts + unspecified lost jobs -

1. [Again, the dark merger-downsizing connection -]
   DuPont to cut jobs in its coatings division, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   E. I. Dupont de Nemours & Co. will cut 900 jobs...or about 6.6% of the unit's work force, bringing the total cuts to 2,200 as it works to improve profit at a paints business it acquired last year. DuPont said it would save $80m in the moves and would take a 2d-quarter pretax charge of about $55m. The job cuts will be mostly in Europe, where the Herberts paint unit, which it bought from Hoechst of Germany, is based. DuPont said in July [7/08/99] it would eliminate 1,300 positions in the coatings unit, or 8.7% of the work force at the time, and shut 6 Herberts plants in Europe, Mexico and Brazil.
   [Well, as we said last July - That's really great, DuPont, you're so awesome and big - and so dumb in cutting jobs, morale, markets, and - just you watch - productivity. You could easily have retrained and cross-trained and reassigned, and cut hours if necessary to spread the work and avoid cutting your own best market, your own employees. But no, big dumb Deathwish DuPont wants to be just like Rambo and is gonna end up like Baby Huey.]

2. Apple orchard in Maine to close, AP via Boston Globe, E19.
   MONMOUTH, Maine - After 67 years of apple growing, [Chick Orchards] one of Maine's largest orchards, is going out of business.
   [Well that's got to mean a few lost jobs. And with 67 years of apple growing, it started in 1933, exactly the same year as the lost heaven of the American 30-hour workweek bill that passed the U.S. Senate (but FDR blocked in the House - to his regret).]
   Norm Chick, a co-owner...said Tuesday that many factors contributed to the decision, but he declined to elaborate, nor would he say what the owners planned to do with the 700 acres in the central Maine town.
   [Here's hoping the next thing we see is not that they've paved it over for a mall or housing development.]
   Chick said it will be business as usual for the next few months as the orchard continues to deliver and sell fresh apples. Chick Orchards produces more than 300,000 boxes of apples in a season, and hundreds of people visit the property each year. Ralph Bickford Jr., who has lived in town for 35 years, said many residents feel a connection to the orchard and will be sorry to see it close. Bickford said he especially enjoys seeing the apple blossoms....

4/05/2k  1 forced move reported, totaling 66 jobs up in the air -

• Williamstown to lose Lycos units - Company moving Angelfire and Tripod divisions to Waltham, by Peter Howe, Boston Globe, D7.
  The emerging Internet hotbed called "Silicon Village" in North Adams and Williamstown is losing one of its anchor citizens, as Lycos Inc. announced plans to transfer a 66-person operation based in Williamstown [western Mass.] to its Waltham [eastern Mass.] headquarters...over a 3-month period beginning in July.... Many employees of the 2 [divisions]...have said a key attraction was that they are not based in a place like Waltham. Angelfire and Tripod occupy the 3rd floor of a cable factory, where employees can take laptops up to the roof...to work while taking in views of nearby mountains and a horse farm....
  But...Lycos officials wanted to integarte the [2 divisions] more closely with the rest of 500-employee Lycos [to facilitate] product integration.... Lycos is offering relocation expenses. "Certainly, we hope all of them will move"..\..said Lycos spokeswoman, Michele Perry.... However, the company will allow employees who do not plan to move to remain on the payroll through early August, when Lycos stock options vest, and will offer severance pay to people who choose [not to move]....

• Railroad taking a charge, Bloomberg via NYT, C10.
  NORFOLK, Va. - Norfolk Southern, the 4th-largest U.S. railroad, said [yester]day that it would take a $100m charge for the recently ended 1st quarter to pay severance costs for 919 workers who accepted an early-retirement plan announced in January. The company estimated the charge at 16¢ a share [(negative) instead of the forecast earnings (positive) of] 6¢ a share.... The company had expected [only] about 800 of the 1,180 eligible employees to accept the early-retirement terms.
  [So 119 jobs more than they expected are getting phased out. See previous story on 1/27/2000.]

1. Japanese unemployment at record high ahead of elections, by Stephanie Strom, NYT, B2.
   ...The unemployment rate increased to 4.9%, as bankruptcies rose and companies trimmed jobs in the aftermath of an economic downturn last fall and winter. The Management and Coordination Agency, which tracks unemployment, said the economy lost 160,000 jobs last month, leaving a record 3.3m people looking for work....

2. Xerox to take $625m write-off and eliminate 5,200 jobs [200 more than reported on 3/29], by Claudia Deutsch, NYT, B1.
   The Xerox Corp., which faces increasing competition while it grapples with internal disarray, said yesterday that it would cut 5,200 jobs and farm out some of its manufacturing operations.... More than half the job cuts, which represent about 5% of the company's worldwide workforce, will be in the United States. About 2,000 will be in the Rochester area, where Xerox does much of its manufacturing. Its sales and research staffs are likely to emerge unscathed, but Xerox said it would cut its management by 10%.... This is the second time in two years that Xerox has cut jobs and taken huge write-offs. In 1998, Xerox took a $1.1B after-tax charge, and eliminated 9,000 jobs. That time, sales and profits were robust, and Wall Street viewed the cuts as preventive medicine.
   [Those of us in the Timesizing world viewed those cuts as unnecessary and demoralizing, cuts that helped induce the subsequent problems because of stupid "neutron bomb" management. Attitudes propagate quickly through a company from top management to employees, and if the company via top management doesn't give a damn about employees, employees starts to not give a damn about the company. Downsizing during robust sales and profits while executives reap mega perks? The once-proud Xerox Corporation and its executives now deserve the trashcan they've so readily thrown at employees. What should they have done? They should have cut the workweek and not the workforce, like high-morale Lincoln Electric and Nucor Steel.]

3. Steris Corp., NYT, B3.
   ...Mentor, Ohio, which provides sterilization systems for health care and research, plans to cut up to 200 jobs [4.4%] as part of a restructuring. The company has more than 4,500 employees worldwide.

4. [Again, the lethal takeover-downsizing connection -]
   Laser maker to cut costs, Bloomberg via NYT, B16.
   WALTHAM, Mass. - Summit Technology Inc. will take a Q1 pretax restructuring charge of $3m and eliminate 20 jobs as the company, the No. 2 U.S. maker of surgical eye lasers, cuts costs to make up for price reductions caused by competition. Summit will take the charge to speed the integration of the laser equipment maker Autonomous [not any more! - ed.] Technologies, which it bought last year for $224m in stock and cash.

For more details, our laypersons' guide to our great economic future Timesizing, Not Downsizing is available at bookstores in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass. or from *Amazon.com online.

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