Timesizing® Associates - HOMEPAGE

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Downsizings, June 2002
[Commentary] ©2002 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

6/29/2002  1 downsizing, totaling 5000 jobcuts, reported in (NYT) NY Times & (AR) Arizona Republic -

1. California: Cuts for health system, AP via NYT, A12.
   Los Angeles County supervisors have voted to close 11 of 18 public health clinics and eliminate 5,000 jobs in what could become the largest cutbacks ever in the county's health care system. The county health director, Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, had recommended shutting clinics to help the county reduce an $800m deficit by $150m....

• In addition, there are two industrywide downsizing stories which we are not including in the corporate count -
  • Job cuts take heavy toll on telecom industry - Few displaced workers are likely to be rehired, by Louis Uchitelle, NYT, B1.
    WorldCom's downfall is swelling the exodus of workers from the telecommunications industry, which alone has accounted for more than one out of every 10 jobs lost in the United States since the recession began in March last year.... The cuts have come from the dozens of companies that build and operate the nation's networks for telephone service, cable television, the Internet, e-mail and data transmission..\..
    [As the industrial revolution injected worksaving machines into the economy, first agriculture was mechanized and employees fled to manufacturing. Then manufacturing was mechanized and automated and employees fled to services. During each of these processes, the impact was cushioned by the reduction of the workweek, which was adjusted downward from the 80-84 hour level of the 1830s and 40s to the 40-hour level in 1940, chiefly by union efforts and those of farsighted capitalists (Kellogg, Filene, occasionally Ford...) and politicians (Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt...). Now the service sector is getting automated and robotized. In economies that fail to adjust the workweek further downward to make the move from a mindset of working hard to one of working smart, employees are now starting a chase from one part of the service sector to another, as one part after another is automated. This whole process will further reduce wages and markets, and tighten the contradiction between huge tech-amplified productivity and tiny downsizing-diminished consumption. Ergo, chronic and deepening recession and depression.]
    Most of this rapid job shrinkage in telecommunications has come through layoffs, buyouts and forced retirements. Indeed, telecom companies have exceeded any other industry in the number of publicly announced jobcuts over the last 18 months....
    [This reporter then goes on to make the usual fatuous 20/20-hindsight argument that these companies had "wildly overexpanded in the 1990s" and need to "get down to where they should be," totally ignoring the necessary inference that we therefore "should be" in "the recession [that] began in March last year." Ah, the lame ramblings of the time-blind with their unavoidably superficial analyses.]

  • Mexico is attracting a better class of factory in its South, by Ginger Thompson, NYT, A3.
    The numbers add up to doom for cheap labor, one of Mexico's most marketable commodities since World War II. In the last two years, some 280,000 jobs have vanished with the closure of more than 350 maquiladoras, the foreign-owned assembly plants that manufacture for export everything from blue jeans to blenders, televisions to toys.... The closing of so many maquiladoras reflects the harsh economics of globalization....
    [and in fact the unsustainability of globalization in its present design that makes for a "race to the bottom" for the vast majority of people and an astronomical concentration of unspendable spending power for a very few.]
    Cheap as Mexico's labor is, it is not as cheap as that in Asia or Eastern Europe..\..
    So Mexico has embarked [on] an effort to attract a new kind of maquiladora, one that requires more skilled workers and will , the government hopes, offer more...stable jobs....
    [In short, Mexico still doesn't get it. It's still going for hopeless makework instead effective sharework.]
    One such beacon of hope is...a subsidiary of an Ohio-based company that produces airplane parts for GE. ...Said Patricio Patron, governor of the state of Yucatan..."We want to give opportunities to higher level factories - and some are beginning to come." Nonbelievers say such sentiments are wishful thinking. They note the number of high-tech factories that have opened is relatively small and say Mexico's poor education system [is inadequate] for highly skilled jobs....

1. Motorola to cut another 7,000 jobs, pointer digest (to C13), NYT, C1.
   ...or 7% of its work force, and incur $3.5B in charges in a cost-cutting move that virtually completes its two-year revamping. ...The cuts [a]re part of an effort to reduce expenses in several areas, including manufacturing.

2. European consulting giant will cut 5,500 employees, by Kerry Shaw, NYT, W1.
   PARIS...- Citing grim market conditions with no foreseeable rebound, Cap Gemini, the largest computer consulting company in Europe, [will] lay off up to...one tenth of its staff, and restructure the company to cut costs.
   [So its total staff was 5500x10= 55,000 and is now 55000-5500= 49,500.]
   ...The CEO, Paul Hermelin, told reporters on a conference call, "We can no longer wait for a hypothetical recovery at some point in the future."
   [The spoiled skill-less-ness of CEOs during the labor glut at the end of a Kondratieff wave is boundless. Hermelin should have cited his own laziness in trying to grow by takeover instead of by grooming employees, services and markets -]
   ...In the U.S...it bought Ernst & Young's consulting arm for $10.5 billion in 2000. That expensive acquisition was "a good one, but the timing was deplorable," said Fabrice Vennin, a fund manager at Financiere Meerschaert, who holds Cap Gemini shares. "The integration was difficult from the start," Mr. Vennin said, noting that he does not plan to buy any more shares in the company.
   [In short, no acquisition is a good one, especially if it's expensive. This cheerleader finally admits as much.]
   Cap Gemini, which has offices in 30 countries and is based in Paris, said 2,500 jobs would be eliminated immediately in its telecommunications and financial services divisions, costing 140m euros ($137.3m) this year but saving 230m euros annually.
   [and "saving" a lot of their customers' customers too as 2500 layoffees immediately curtail their shopping.]
   Earlier this year, Mr. Hermelin was insisting publicly that the company was done with its major cost-cutting efforts, which included a similar-size round of layoffs....
   ["Oh, this is a one-time downsizing!" Sure, sure.]
   ..\..Like its rivals, Cap Gemini has experienced a sharp shrinkage in revenue in the last year..\.. Bowing to market reality, the company [will] reorient itself to focus less on information technology and more on other kinds of management consulting....
   [Sounds like a plan now they're experts in "building" your company via costly takeovers and repeated downsizings. But then, there are so many other experts in this kind of corporate Kevorkianism these days.]
   [Followup -]
   Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Dow Jones via 2/28/2003 WSJ, C13.
   ...Layoffs trimmed its staff almost 9% to 52,683 employees at the end of the year....
   [Quite a different story from trimming 10% to 49,500 at midyear above. What gives??]

3. Germany: Bank to cut jobs, Reuters via NYT, W1.
   Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, [will] cut nearly 4,000 more jobs as it presses "ahead" [our quotes - ed.] with a drive to reduce costs by 2B euros ($1.97B) over the next 18 months. The...move brings jobcuts since the start of the year to about 13,000, or more than 13% of [its] workforce.

4. Modem Media plans job cuts, NYT, C7.
   ...An interactive services agency based in Norwalk, Conn. [will] close offices in Hong Kong, Munich, and Toronto and lay off employees in most of its other offices. Modem executives cited reductions in expected revenue as the reason for the cutbacks. The agency will dismiss 90 employees, or 22.5% of its total staff of 400....

• WorldCom facing charges of fraud; Bush vows inquiry - Stock markets shudder - SEC filing moves company even closer to bankruptcy - 'Industry is reeling', by Simon Romero, NYT, front page.
  And as the company's work force braced for a wave of pink slips - WorldCom plans to cut 17,000 of its 85,000 employees - some consumer and corporate customers of WorldCom's MCI long-distance unit were already looking for alternative carriers....
  [17k is 20% of 85k.]

• Technology - Yahoo! Inc., Republic news services via AR, D2.
  ...Owner of the world's most used group of Internet sites will shut down services that stream video financial news and local radio broadcasts over the Web to reduce expenses. Fewer than 30 jobs will be eliminated with the closure of Yahoo! FinanceVision and Yahoo!Radio, Henry Sohn, Yahoo's VP and general manager of network services, said in an interview. The Sunnyvale CA-based company will stop the services within a week [as] part of CEO Terry Semel's effort to cut costs, Sohn said.
  [So say, 29 jobcuts?]

1. Loudeye to trim jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C10.
   ...A maker of software for broadcasting audio and video over the Internet [will] dismiss 37% of its workforce, including the CFO, and cut executive pay to save more than $10.2m annually.... Loudeye's executives agreed to a 10% paycut..\.. Loudeye, based in Seattle, will be left with 130 employees....
   [So let's see, if 130 employees account for the remaining 63%, the total before cuts was 203 and the cuts numbered 73.]

2. Cooper-Hewitt shake-up and layoffs reverberate, by Celestine Bohlen, NYT, B1.
   ...Two weeks ago, [director Paul] Thompson summoned his staff and announced that he was abolishing four positions..\..at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum....including the registrar and two of four top curatorial jobs at a museum noted for its rich collections of wall coverings, textiles and decorative arts. Mr. Thompson [is] a Briton whose last job was director of the Design Museum in London....
   [What are they doing hiring a Brit to direct a US national museum?]
   But in fact the loss of senior people at the museum on Fifth Avenue and East 91st Street has been much greater than announced. Over recent months, more than a dozen administrators, curators, researchers and part-time consultants have left the Cooper-Hewitt, fleeing an atmosphere described by a former employee as "draining" and by another as "total misery." "It is very sad because there is an enormous institutional memory that has walked out the door," said Linda Dunne, the former deputy director....

1. Pipeline company cuts workforce of traders, Bloomberg via AR, D2.
   TULSA, Ok. - Williams Cos., the No. 2 US natural-gas pipeline company, will cut 16% of its energy marketing and trading workforce next week because of a decline in that business.... The company has about 800 trading and marketing staff in Houston and its HQ in Tulsa....
   [So, 16% of 800 is 128 jobcuts.]
   It also fired 11 traders, or 13% of its trading staff in London.
   [So the total jobcuts here are 128+11= 139 total jobcuts. If 13% is 11, 100% is 11/13x100%= 85. Let's assume that's the essentially all of the London office so we can get an overall percentage for this downsizing = (128+11)/(800+85)= 139/885= 15.7, say, still a 16% cut overall.]

2. Northwest power firm is laying off workers, Bloomberg via AR, D2.
   BOISE, Id. - Idacorp Inc., the electric utility that serves 700,000 people in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada, will wind down its power-marketing business and fire about 60 employees amid a lack of credit-worthy trading partners.... The cuts in the unit's 120-person workforce will be made over 18 months and Idacorp will slash working capital for the business by half, to $100m....
   Energy trading is shrinking in the United States as regulators probe sham transactions in the wake of the collapse of Enron Corp., which ran EnronOnline, the biggest online market. Dynegy Inc., which tried to buy Enron [how dumb can you get?!] this week shut its computer-trading system because the number of electricitiy and natural-gas transactions is declining amid industry credit concerns.
   [Re Dynegy, see yesterday's #2.]

1. Europe - Reuters Group plans to cut 650 more jobs, WSJ, A6.
   Britain's global financial-data and trading-systems company \will\ cut 650 additional jobs to improve its margins, fanning worries that [its] revenues are under pressure due to the downturn in financial services.... The latest round of job cuts - mostly in Reuter's senior and middle management ranks -...brings the company's total job cuts since last year to 2,750. Reuter's had a total work force of 19,000 at Dec. 31.
   [So its current workforce is 19000-2750= 16,250 and the current 650 cuts amount to a 650/(16250+650)x100%= 3.8% downsizing.]
   CEO Tom Glocer said "market conditions remain challenging."... Reuters is the primary data provider from several statistical tables in The Wall Street Journal, and its real-time data feeds are used to calculate various Dow Jones Indexes.
   [And with Reuters doing all this morale-dropping downsizing instead of morale-raising timesizing, no telling what little errors may creep in, completely accidentally of course.]
   [Followup - apparently we should have counted more here because, of the 2750 since last year, we had so far only counted 200, on 2/13/2002 #8. We'll straighten this out on 2/19/2003.]

2. Dynegy halts energy trading online, by Mitchel Benson, WSJ, A3.
   ...The Houston energy-trading company..\..confirming a broader restructuring, said it would lay off 340 of its 6,100 employees - including 50, or 16%, of the 300 in its trading operation. A spokesman said there was "no direct correlation" between the trading layoffs and the shutdown of..\..its Dynegydirect online system....
   [Ri-i-ight! Anyway, this is the first known occasion where we have found an article from the big business cheerleader (WSJ) that tells more bad news than the not-so-big biz cheerleader (NYT), whose version of this article - "Dynegy shuts its online trading system," AP via NYT, C4 - doesn't breathe a word about layoffs and in fact, emphasizes the temporary nature of the shutdown. In addition, the NYT completely missed our first downsizing du jour (above). This means that we will be gradually switching from the combo of the NYT and a regional paper, usually the Boston Globe, for our badnews coverage, to the NYT and the WSJ. This will give us a better liberal-conservative balance in our sources anyway, and satisfy the several people who have asked why we draw on the BG instead of the WSJ (our answer is that the last time we did a thorough check of the WSJ, the cheerleading completely drowned out the bad news and what news there was was scattered throughout 3 sections and difficult to find).

• Parker Hannifin to close plants and take a charge, Reuters via NYT, C4.
  ...A maker of motion and control systems [compare Analog Devices - ed.] said yesterday it would take a $50m charge to write down assets, close 6 plants and cut about 1,000 jobs....

1. Peregrine Systems to cut work force, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   The software maker [will] cut its work force almost in half in the next few weeks as the company reels from an accounting scandal, a management reshuffling, and weak demand. Peregrine, based in San Diego, [will] reduce the number of its employees to about 1,500 from about 2,900. Peregrine makes software that enables businesses to track physical assets.
   [2900-1500= 1,400 jobcuts or 48% of total workforce.]

2. Manufactured-home maker to cut jobs and shut stores, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Champion Enterprises Inc. [will] have a wider-than-expected Q2 loss, ...lay off about 100 employees and close 33 stores and a plant as industry sales continue to slow....
   [This case would seem to belie the trend mentioned in another article, another paper today, "Housing starts soar, lifting economy," by George Hager, USA Today, front page.]

• Deere to close 2 plants and lay off 300 workers, AP via NYT, C4.
  ...The job cuts represent 7% of the division's work force..\.. Deere & Co. will cut back production at a third [plant also] as part of a streamlining effort.... Factories at Williamsburg, Va. and Jeffersonville, Ind., will be closed and operations at Horicon, Wis. will be reduced as part of an effort to lower costs.... Employment at the Horicon plant will be reduced through a special retirement incentive...and about 100 jobs there will be transferred from Horicon to Fuquay-Varina, NC....

1. 2 agencies shut offices as work falls off, by Saul Hansell, NYT, C8.
   ...Arnold Worldwide in Boston is closing its San Francisco office, citing the continued weak advertising economy there.... Work for...clients like Gulf Lubricants and Keynote Software will be completed in the next few weeks and then the 17...employees of the office will be laid off. ...The office...became part of Arnold when Arnold acquired Ingalls Moranville in 1999....
   [Again the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]

2. 2 agencies shut offices as work falls off, by Saul Hansell, NYT, C8.
   ...Grey Worldwide, part of the Grey Global Group, is closing its office in Fort Worth, as a client, the Texas Dairy Queen Operators Council, shifts its account to Loomis in Dallas. Eleven employees are being laid off....
   The Fort Worth office became part of Grey in 1998 when Grey acquired the Council's agency, Regian & Wilson....
   [And again, the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]

• Helicopter plant to close, Reuters via NYT, B2.
  The Kaman Corp. will lay off as many as 390 factory employees as the company closes a 50-year-old helicopter plant in Moosup, Conn.
  [Gee, an actual event in humble Moosup, Conn.! The only thing we've ever seen there when we pulled off the highway to see what was behind this wondrous name was two houses and a barn. But "don't git yer moosup!" Or how about "Put some ketchup on yer moosup & shuddup."]
  ...Kaman, which is based in Bloomfield CT, had about 3,780 employees at the end of 2001. Kaman said it would...cut 90 aerospace jobs in Conn..\.. About 300 workers will be laid off at Moosup by the end of 2003.... The work will be moved to Kaman plants in Bloomfield CT, Wichita KN, and Jacksonville FL.... Employees will be considered for relocation....
  [Let's see. 390 of 3780 is a 10.3% downsizing.

1. Britain's privatized Post cuts deliveries and jobs, by Andrew Sorkin, NYT, W1.
   LONDON...- Because of ballooning costs and falling demand and revenue, Britain's postal service, Consignia PLC, reported the biggest annual loss in its 367-year history [yester]day. The company, which has already shed 12,000 jobs this year to cut costs, [will] have to eliminate 17,000 more if it is ever to return to profitability.
   [Well, we've seen no layoff reports from "Consignia" in the past 1½ years, so we now have to count 12,000+17,000= 29,000 jobcuts.]
   It also said it would change its name - again. "Consignia" was adopted just 15 months ago in a £2m ($2.9m) effort to remake the image of the former Post Office Group. But the name has drawn nothing but scorn from the public.
   [Couldn't they have done a £200 survey instead?]
   So by the end of 2002...its letterhead will read Royal Mail Group PLC....
   [Much better.]
   In its most radical move yet, and one that is likely to draw a flood of criticism from the public, Consignia [plans] to stop twice-daily deliveries to most addresses, a level of service that the British and many other Europeans have enjoyed long after it disappeared in North America..\.. The onetime monopoly lost $1.6B before taxes in the year ended March 31 [and] said it would save about $515m a year by eliminating second deliveries. \It was\ the first time since 1978 that it has been in the red for the year. It is troubled by fresh competition from delivery services using more efficient technology....
   [Followup -] Royal Mail loss halves, sees profit this year, by Victoria Cutler & Sudip Kargupta, Reuters 05/22/2003 09:39 ET via AOLNews.
   LONDON...- British postal service operator Royal Mail said on Thursday its losses nearly halved last year and aims to be back in profit this year.... The state-owned company is cutting tens of thousands of jobs and outsourcing non-core operations in a bid to return to profit amid stiff competition in its markets. Around 16,000 people have left the firm in the past financial year....
   [For more of this followup story, see 5/23/2003 #2.]

2. Tyco International to cut jobs and sell several buildings, AP via NYT, C3.
   CONCORD, N.H. - ...About 115 corporate jobs will be eliminated....

• Switzerland: Bank cutting jobs, by Elizabeth Olson, NYT, W1.
  The Credit Suisse Group [will] cut 500 jobs [to] increase earnings..\..as it revamps its private banking operations. The cuts are in addition to 800 reductions the company announced last year, bringing the total to more than 4,000 posts over all.
  ["All" being how many years??]
  The bank, based in Zurich, said the job losses would be mainly in support staff, and would come from attrition....

• Celera will lay off 16% of its workers, Reuters via NYT, C4.
  The Celera Genomics Group [will] cut 132 jobs associated with gene sequencing, the business on which it was founded and which helped speed the mapping of the human genome..\..and take a $2.8m charge as it tries to turn itself from a gene information company into a drug developer. Celera, based in Rockville, Md...is a unit of the Applera Corp.

1. Essential Therapies sets layoffs, Bloomberg via BG, C2.
   Waltham MA-based...develop[er of] drugs to fight life-threatening diseases...is cutting 80 jobs while eliminating several early development research programs to shift funding to clinincal product development....

2. Tenor Networks laying off 49 employees, Bloomberg via BG, C2.
   ...An Acton MA telecommunications start-up is laying of 49 [41%] of its 120 employees and closing its research office in Edinburgh. ...It is "reducing the size of its global workforce over the next two quarters" so it can conserve cash and remain in business through at least 2004. Tenor...makes optical telecom switches enabling phone companies to convert "bandwidth" into specialized services but has reported no sales.
   [Oh but contemporary economists and analysts don't care because they've got "productivity" (regardless of marketability).]

• Etc. - Presstek Inc., Globe wire services via BG, F1.
  of Hudson, NH, will fire about 20% of its workforce, or about 50 people, combine facilities and discontinue some programs and products as the maker of digital-imaging and printing equipment cuts costs. Presstek plans to move its R&D facilities into its main offices....

• China: Bank cuts jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, W1.
  The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the nation's biggest lender, said it cut 10% of its staff and branches last year to rebuild a business with $96B in bad loans, about a fifth of its assets. The 47,000 job cuts leave the state-owned lender with 429,000 workers at 28,300 outlets.

1. Analysts say WorldCom plans up to 16,000 new layoffs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The struggling telephone company...based in Clinton, Miss. will pare its workforce of 80,000 "to align costs with revenue," a spokesman, Brad Burns, said.... The cuts, reported yesterday in USA Today, will be in addition to a 7% reduction in WorldCom's staff since March 2001....
   [Well, all we've counted of this "7%" is 3700 cuts on 4/4/2002 #1, although 7,000 cuts were rumored the previous day. So we're talking about a pre-March workforce of 80000/(100-7)x100= 86,022, dropping by 7% = 6,022, of which we have yet to count 6022-3700= 2,322. So we must now count 16000+2322= a total of 18,322 jobcuts. So what percentage is that? 18322/(80000+2322)x100% = 22% of total pre-cut workforce.]
   [Followup - "WorldCom, seeking loans, intends to cut 16,000 jobs [20%]," Bloomberg via 6/15/2002 NYT, B4.]

2. KPNQwest lays off a third [30%] of Dutch headquarters staff, by Suzanne Kapner, NYT, W1.
   ...moving the embattled company, which owns Europe's largest fiber optic network, a step closer to collapse.... Koen van Zijl, a KPNQwest spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the company had laid off 600 of the 2,000 employees at its headquarters in Hoofddorp [Netherlands]....

• I.B.M. plans job cuts in semiconductor unit, by Andrew Zipern, NYT, C4.
  IBM said yesterday that it would lay off 1,500 employees in its semiconductor unit, or about 7.5% of the work force, as part of a companywide reorganization plan to focus on more profitable business areas. The layoffs, which will be concentrated in Burlington, Vt., and Fishkill, NY, come in addition to about 4,500 job cuts IBM has made in other units, including its server division and software group.... The layoffs, widely expected, were less than had been rumored..\.. Earlier in the week, the company announced it would have leave the disk-drive business.... IBM employs 8,000 people in Vermont and is the state's largest private employer....
  [Well let's try and make sense of this, which is hopefully the "big roundup" which speaks of a total of 1500+4500= 6000 IBM jobcuts. We have already counted 5 (5/30/2002 #5) + 700 (5/24/2002 #2) + 1000 (5/14/2002 #1) + 1200 (11/29/2001 #1) = 2,905 total jobcuts counted. So that leaves 6000-2905= 3,095 jobcuts to count now.]

1. DDi will cut work force by 13%, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The DDi Corp., which makes printed circuit boards, [will] cut [260 employees] and close or sell manufacturing plants in Dallas and Moorpark, Calif. The company, based in Anaheim, Calif., has about 2,000 employees.... Bruce McMaster, DDi's CEO, said the moves - to be completed within 60 days - would permit the company to "lower our cost structure without compromising our ability to respond to market demand."...

2. Oracle lays off 200 software developers to cut costs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...yesterday...in a move to combine business-software divisions and reduce costs. Most of the workers were at Oracle's headquarters in Redwood City, Calif.... The cuts, made Friday, represent 2% of Oracle's 10,000-person development staff. Oracle has about 42,000 employees worldwide. Oracle is trying to increase sales of its Web-based business programs after customers and analysts said the software had too many flaws.

1. J. Crew Group reports a widened loss in first quarter, NYT, B4.
   ...The fashion retailer [was] hurt by a double-digit decline in same-store sales and a charge related to the elimination of 20% of its workforce during the quarter.
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]
   J. Crew, which is based in New York, has struggled for months with declining sales and fashion missteps. The company...aims its merchandise at customers in their late 20's....
   [Hmm, isn't that agism? Other companies aim at the Latino market, etc. Seems agism and racial profiling are bad everywhere but in marketing.]

2. Farmland Industries in bankruptcy after rejecting Smithfield bid, Bloomberg via NYT, B4.
   ...The nation's largest farm cooperative...plans to shed jobs, sell assets and reduce debt..\..
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]
   The cooperative, which is based in Kansas City, Mo., has already sold its domestic grain business and closed its international trading unit to cut costs and pay interest on its debt after a 4-year slump in demand for fertilizer, seeds and fuel it sells to its 600,000 members.
   [Never mind a "slump in demand" from its own members, which should be predictable - what's up with that "international trading unit"??]

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