Timesizing® Associates

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Downsizings Aug. 16-31/99
[Commentary] ©1998,1999 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

8/31/99  3 Downsizings Reported (total 630 +unspecified) -

1. CompUSA cutting [500 from] commercial sales force, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The nation's largest computer retailer said yesterday that it would reduce its 3,600-member commercial sales organization by 50% as part of a previously announced reorganization. About 1,300 sales staff members affected have been offered positions in the revamped organization, which is changing its commercial sales business from a decentralized model to a regional sales structure.
   [Boy, they sure are making the bad news harder to figure out. Let's see. 50% of 3600 is 1800, minus the 1300 they're rehiring, is 500 they're not rehiring. Isn't it a little suicidal to cut your SALES force?! - and jerk them around like, you're fired, no some of you aren't fired. If this is supposed to raise their morale and productivity, we bet it doesn't.]
   On June 24, CompUSA announced sweeping changes to its system of 211 stores, including job cuts and possible closing of up to 14 locations. In June, the company said it expected to shed 1,000 to 1,500 of some 21,000 jobs.

2. Paperboard plant closing, Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   The Shorewood Packaging Corp., a maker of paperboard packaging for consumer products, plans to close a North Carolina manufacturing plant to cut $3 million in annual costs and shift production to more convenient sites.
   [Mexico?]
   The plant...is in Stanley, NC, near Charlotte.... About 130 workers will be dismissed. Shorewood's total work force is about 3,800.
   [Shorewood should be learning from its neighbor in Charlotte, Nucor Steel, one of the most flexible companies in the world. Nucor flexes its workweek instead of its workforce.]

3. Long John Silvers Restaurants Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Lexington, Ky., the largest quick-service seafood chain, said it had closed 28 unprofitable restaurants.

1. 1,600 layoffs are planned in Singapore, AP via NYT, B3.
   In the latest layoffs to hit Singapore's electronics industry...the world's largest personal computer maker..\..Compaq will dismiss 1,600 people, or nearly two-thirds of the workers at its Singapore factory...by the first quarter of next year..\.. Compaq...said in July that it would close a number of plants and cut up to 8,000 jobs worldwide to reverse losses. Compaq reported a $184 million loss in the second quarter.

2. BP Amoco cuts jobs, AP via NYT, B4.
   ALVIN, Tex. - Citing the struggles engulfing the petrochemical industry and some duplication from its massive merger in January, BP Amoco has laid off 129 workers at a Houston-area petrochemical plant. A company spokesman, Daren Beaudo, said most of the layoffs were not directly related to the merger of British Petroleum [BP] and Amoco, which resulted in the combined company's slimming its work force by 15,000.

1. Sulzer to cut jobs, Dow Jones via NYT, C3.
   Struggling to reverse falling profit at its industrial operations, Sulzer AG of Switzerland said it would eliminate 2,000 jobs.... The job cuts will be completed by the end of 2001. The move comes as the company reported a 20% slide in operating income for the first-half of the year....
   [European CEOs are just as dumb as American CEOs. They haven't figured out that keeping everyone together by cutting hours, not jobs, avoids "cutting off their nose to spite their face."]

2. Autodesk says it plans to cut 10% of its work force, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of design software [design of what??] said yesterday that it planned to cut 10% of its work force amid slower sales and transition to new products.
   [Brilliant. Transitioning to new products and it opens up a second huge "stormfront" for its people to adjust to. Just brilliant.]
   The moves come two months after the company, based in San Rafael, Calif., said that it would divide into four business divisions and that Eric Herr, then president and chief operating officer, planned to retire.
   [Oh, already two big adjustments "on the plate" before the new-products battlefront opened up. Is anyone else getting the feeling that what passes as "management" today consists of creating so many crises at once that no one will notice how totally inept you are at real management (= mgmt of people, incentives & schedules) and, tracing backward, how clueless our MBA programs are? Since all they teach is crisis management, it's "between the lines" that you get "How to Create Crisis 101" - and "201", and "301"....
   [These bozos should be minimizing the adjustment by cutting hours 10%, not people. A 36-hr workweek for everyone, especially top management, would get everyone more focused and prioritized, and by preserving the existing skillset that everyone is familiar with, give the company a stronger base from which to initiate the training, retraining and cross-training that the new products demand and that will be absolutely pervasive in the corporations of the Third Millennium. Nucor, VW and Lincoln Electric are already doin' it.]

1. [Note the destructive progression from takeover to downsizing.]
   Tyco International to pare [2200] jobs at Raychem, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...or about a quarter of the workforce...less than a week after buying the company.... Workers at Raychem, a maker of wiring and tubing that is based in Menlo Park, Cal. and employs 9000, were told of the job cuts on Tuesday.... Tyco has about 87,000 workers and expects the cuts, half of which are in the United States, to save about $250 million.
   ["Save" for whom? The nation's richest? Why? What's the point?]
   It does not expect to take a charge. Tyco has its headquarters in Hamilton, Bermuda and is run from executive offices in Exeter, NH.
   [Obviously some subterfuge there.]

2. Komag to make [480] additional cuts in U.S. work force, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of disk drive components based in San Jose, Calif., said yesterday that it would cut...almost half its remaining United States work force, and shift manufacturing to Malaysia to cut costs.
   [Cut costs for whom? The wealthy? Why? What's the point?]
   It said it would close two plants in San Jose and cut the number of [American, SAY IT!] workers to 570 from 1,050.... Last month, it said it would cut 500 [American!] jobs in the thrid quarter because of falling sales and prices.
   [Falling prices, alias deflation, is a big hallmark of Depression. Hello, is anyone awake out there? And this story goes on with more hints about "Why falling prices?"]
   Last quarter, Komag cut 400 jobs.
   [And the ultimate impact on the wealthy...]
   The shares, down 66% this year, fell 6.25¢ yesterday to $3.5625, before trading was halted for the latest announcement.
   [But TPTB (the powers that be) never "get it" till all the shares crash at once.]

1. [OK, here's the full story, with figures (finally!), on Eatons of Canada from the Toronto Star, thanks to our dear sister, Donna Hyde Jeffrey, who lives in the center of it all just above Bloor and Yonge.]
   [13,000] Firings begin at Eaton's [leader blowout], Toronto Star, front page.
   Leaders dismissed a "significant" but unknown number of Eaton's employees yesterday, the majority at the corporate level. All 13,000 employees received termination notices, although some will stay on as long as Nov. 30 to handle the liquidation sale which starts today.
   [And here's the main story.]
   Executive [& all other] heads roll as Eaton's winds down - Liquidators take over, staff and prices slashed, by Steven Theobald, Toronto Star, frontpage Business section (E1).
   Heads have started rolling at Eaton's, including that of its top executive. Other managers, including three of its five divisional presidents, were terminated.
   The retailer's merchandising and buying group, roughly 150 people, led by executive VP Dave Murdoch, are also out. Marketing and advertising departments, about 45 people, gone.
   And Eaton's formally served termination notices to all its 13,000 employees, about 3,500 full-time.
   The liquidators, led by Gordon Brothers, are now calling all the shots. The employees needed to liquidate merchandise were advised through letters to continue reporting to work, with the potential for staying until Nov. 30.
   [And what incentive do they have for doing that if they can get another offer?!]
   Exactly how many people were terminated yesterday wasn't known, but the majority are at the corporate level, said Karen Goulet, spokesperson for the T. Eaton Co. Ltd. "It's not half the workforce, but it's a significant layoff."...
   Eaton's shares also ended their short and miserable life, with the Toronto Stock Exchange delisting the company yesterday.... The shares, which initially sold for $15 in June, 1998, when first sold to the public, ended their 14-month downward spiral at 40 cents. Analysts [say] shareholders will be lucky to get anything....
   [This presents the possiblity of an explanation: another casualty of "going public" - or the "commoditize the goodwill and concentrate the wealth" attitude behind it.
   [Additionally, there's a downsizing-specific story inside - ]
   Final clearance of Eaton's staff officially begins - Pink slips handed out to 13,000 workers as liquidators move in, by Natalia Williams, Toronto Star, E5.
   ...Only a portion of the store's 9,000 part-time and about 3,500 full-time staff will be kept on during the liquidation period, but exactly how many is still unclear. The move comes one day after Gordon Brothers Retail Partners was appointed the interim receiver to initiate liquidation of the merchandise in the chain's 64 locations and two outlets.
   Susan Rowland, a labour lawyer with Koskie and Minsky [sounds NewYork, except for the spelling of "labour" - but then, Toronto is the town Peter Ustinov called "New York run by the Swiss"], representing 20,000 Eaton's employees and retirees, said the notices, though seemingly harsh, are routine.
   [Then maybe the "routine" is too "harsh"?!]
   ...Under federal and provincial standards, employees must be given a maximum of eight weeks notice before termination.
   [They need to waste legislation on a MAXIMUM or is this a typo for minimum?? Reading further supports the typo theory...]
   That number varies from province to province, Rowland said. [She] said the notice means employees no longer work for the T. Eaton Co., but for the liquidators...until all merchandise is sold by Nov. 30. "There's probably going to be a lot of emotions to seeing the notice. It's kind of like a death notice. It suddenly gets very real."
   Earlier in the day, employees at Eaton's flagship store in downtown Toronto were resigned to the lack of details about what would happen once the interim receiver was appointed on Monday. Some talked about wanting closure to the company's downward spiral over the last two years.
   [What a "coincidence". That's the exact period of time that Eatons had gone public. Sounds like "bored leadership syndrome" alias, "go public and BAIL". Always in a pre-Depression period, management gets spoiled by labor glut and quality of management goes down and down. Not only investors turn into short-term speculators. The entire management club turns short-term speculators, led by the pied pipes of "Chainsaw" Dunlap and the pied face of "Money Vacuum" Gates to the gates of destruction.]
   "We're expecting not to find anything out," said a seven-year employee, who did not want her name used. "Our frustration is palpable." Another 20-year Eaton's staffer, simply awaited the "inevitable."
   Douglas Tigert...a former dean of the University of Toronto's graduate business school \and now\ a professor of retail marketing at Babson College near Boston...said..."If the [mall owners] can move fast enough [in finding new tenants] and it happens over the next 60-90 days, some employees may not even lose their jobs."...
   ["Hope springeth eternal..."]

2. Seagate Technology to cut 1,600 jobs in Singapore [- Western Digital 2,500], Bloomberg via NYT, C3.
   ...Earlier this month, a rival, the Western Digital Corp., the world's No. 3 disk drive maker, said it would cut 2,500 jobs, or 60% of its Singapore work force, as it moves manufacturing to neighboring Malaysia to trim costs.
   [Looks like Singapore is having the same problem with Malaysia as the USA is having with Mexico, all taken in stride by the timesizing, not downsizing economies of the future.]

3. Seagate Technology to cut 1,600 jobs in Singapore, Bloomberg News via NYT, C3.
   ...The world's largest independent maker of computer disks said yesterday that it would eliminate 1,600 jobs in Singapore as it cuts costs to become more competitive. The dismissals will occur at four Seagate plants in Singapore. The company has about 66,000 workers at its Asia operations, which include China, Malaysia and Thailand. Seagate's job cuts come as disk drive makers are battling to keep or expand market share....
   [More and more desperate companies are battling for less and less market as they stupidly lay off more and more of that very market in a deadly round-robin resembling for all the world a death spiral. What a stupid, lemming-like fashion this has become, as unimaginative and self-destructive CEOs the world over make the same mistake over and over and over again - downsizing instead of timesizing.
   [They should be cutting hours instead of jobs, and the resulting shortage of labor (and not just shortage of skills) would increase training and employment and wages and markets. It's called Timesizing.]

4. Gartner cuts work force by 5%, will take charges, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, C2.
   ...[A seller of] research and analysis on the computer industry said it fired 175 employees.... The Stamford, Conn.-based company's stock fell.... The firings reduced its work force to 3,245 worldwide. About half the cuts were in administrative support and the rest were in management and research.... The company will take a one-time charge of [$19-22m in the fiscal Q4] to account for severance pay. It will also have charges of $16-20m in the first and second quarters for an incentive program to retain key people.
   [Brilliant strategy. First you destroy everybody's incentive and spend a fortune to fire five percent, then you spend a fortune to try to convince key people that you're not idiots. At timesizing firms like VW, Nucor and Lincoln Electric, all this BS is obsolete - everyone sacrifices together because the workweek takes the hit, not the workforce.]

1. Converse plans layoffs, by Gregg Krupa, Boston Globe, D1.
   Converse Inc. is scheduled to lay off up to 70 employees...this week..., 7-8% of its manufacturing work force in Lumberton, NC..\.. Sales of athletic shoes have been sluggish for three years and...the bad times have clearly taken a toll at Converse, of North Reading [Mass.]....
   [Let's see, an 8% workweek cut and some cross-training would build morale, loyalty and productivity and result in a welcome workweek dip to just 37 hours a week, "timesizing, not downsizing."]

2. Possible job cuts also seen at rival shoe maker Reebok, by Gregg Krupa, Boston Globe, D1.
   ...Spokesmen for Reebok International Ltd. are declining to comment on expected cuts in spending, [and] employees and former employees are talking privately about significant layoffs.... Said one former executive, who asked to remain anonymous, "There's talk about layoffs of as much as 20 or 25% but that's just at the rumor stage at this point...." "Especially given the second quarter results, I don't think anyone would be surprised by either layoffs or a management shakeup at Reebok," said one market analyst, who asked not to be identified, echoing the comments of several other industry anaylsts..\..Sales of athletic shoes have been sluggish for three years and...the bad times have clearly taken a toll at...Reebok, of Stoughton, [Mass.]....
   [Hmm, a 25% hours cut instead of staff cut would yield a futuristic workweek of 30 hrs/wk, the same as passed the U.S. Senate on April 6, 1933 - not to mention the maintenance of Reebok's own best markets and marketers, its own employees, and its rate of employee innovation. That, at any rate, was the motivation for pioneer timesizer Lincoln Electric.]

1. Quantum, disk drive maker, cutting 800 jobs, AP via NYT, B4.
   ...about 13% of its work force - to compete better in the rapidly growing low-cost computer market.... The company plans to lay off 650 to 700 employees at its headquarters in Milipitas, Calif., and in Dundalk, Ireland, over the next year.
   [Now, what was that you were saying about "technology creates more jobs than it destroys"? Too bad Quantum hasn't fiigured out how to "compete better" without adding to the self-fueling jobs crash of the overall economy. Maybe they should take a look at VW or Nucor for ideas about trimming their workweek instead of their workforce. Of course, this does require cross-training, and employers do so hate to do any training at all in this deepening global labor glut, despite spot skill shortages.]

2. Nortel Networks Corp., NYT, B4.
   ...Brampton, Ont., a maker of communications equipment, will shut down a research and development unit near Montreal, laying off up to 130 people and moving another 150 jobs.
   [Ah, how far do we have to "move" here? Montréal to Brampton is not a daily commute. Maybe we should just say 280 layoffs?
   [And hey, how come the sniffy New York Times isn't punctilious about putting the accents in Montréal and Québec when they're so compulsive about it in French companies like quadruple-acute Société Générale (takeover #9 on 8/18 on our mergers page)?]

• T. Eaton, Canadian retailer, denies Federated talks, Reuters via NYT, B4.
  Teetering on the brink of collapse, the T. Eaton Co., a big Canadian retailer, denied yesterday that it was in talks on selling assets to Federated Dept. Stores Inc. and said it was closing its Quebec stores.
  [Eaton's is in trouble?  How the heck did that happen in a "booming" economy?  They're a fixture, an institution.  In Toronto, it was always, "Eaton's and Simpson's" as in "Where ya goin'?" - "Eaton's 'n' Simpson's."  Next they'll be telling us that Timothy Eaton Memorial Church (Toronto's wealthiest church, named after the founder of Eaton's Dept. Stores) is in trouble! Ol' Timothy Eaton must be spinning in his grave with fury at his dumb present-day successors.]
  Eaton, Canada's oldest department store chain, said it expected to make an announcement on its future by Monday [next]. There have been numerous reports in Canada that the 130-year-old company was in talks with Federated, the Cincinnati-based owner of Bloomingdale's.
  [Selling out to the Yanks? Say not so! Our own mother was an "Eaton girl" in the late '30s. She was in the typing pool and danced in several of Eaton's Staff Revues in Toronto.]
  On Monday [last], Eaton said a potential buyer for the 64-store chain, which it did not identify, had walked away from the table. Eaton also said it had closed all its Quebec stores. The company has nine stores in the province, including a flagship store in downtown Montreal.
  [So "is it closing" them or "has it closed" them?? At any rate, that's going to mean a few layoffs in this "booming economy," isn't it.
  [Yes indeedy. Here's the story 4 days later. Bahzarrly enuf, still no numbers. (Finally extracted the figure - 13,000 pinkslips - from the Toronto Star. See our 8/25 entry.]
  8/25 Eaton's of Canada dismisses its staff, Reuters via NYT, C17.
  TORONTO, Aug.24 - A day after getting bankruptcy protection from creditors, the T. Eaton Co., the Canadian department store chain, said it had dismissed its employees and added that its chief executive had resigned.
  [Cries of "Shame! Shame!"]
  Eaton's, which over the years had been recognized as Canada's premier quality chain [or was that Simpson's, with Eaton's as the more "democratic" of the pair?], said it has given notice to all employees effective immediately but expected those taking part in its liquidation sale beginning this week to report for work.
  [And what incentive do they have to do that?! We must be talking about several thousand employees here. Do the Toronto papers have the numbers?? Yes indeed they do. Several thousand indeed. We're talkin' 13,000. Our dear sister in the Big T-O just schicked us the goods from the Toronto Star of Aug. 25.]
  Eaton's also said Brent Ballantyne was resigning as chief executive but would remain as chairman.
  An Ontario judge granted the insolvent Eaton's protection from its creditors on Monday, appointing a receiver to liquidate its inventory. Lawyers for Eaton's said the company had no cash available and was deeply in debt. Eaton's inventory is to be sold at 20-40% discounts, beginning Wednesday.
  [Linguistic Clues dept. This story hadta be written by a Canadian and probbly a Torontonian ("T'ronian" to cognoscenti), because outsiders call it "Eaton," and we Torontonians, sniff, have always called it "Eaton's."
  [Our Toronto contact says Canucks fear the fallout in terms of depressed sales for other similar businesses until Eaton's huge bankruptcy sale is over. There are Eatons's all across the country.
  [Eventually CEOs will get smart and hook their corporate workweek to their corporate revenues. Then when revenues fall, the workweek and pay will fall - for everyone, including top executives. That will give everyone more rest and more incentive = more focus, on bringing the company back. And if all fails, it will release the employees onto the job market in small numbers instead of all together in a mutually wage-depressing mass. Unrealistic? Wakeywakey - at least 3 companies are already doin' it.]

8/19  3 Downsizings Reported (total 1,360) -

1. Contifinancial cuts work force after big loss, Dow Jones via NYT, C4.
   ...An ailing financial services firm said yesterday that it would cut about a third of its work force to refocus its mortgage origination operations. The company also posted a huge Q1 loss.... The number of jobs being cut was not available, but the New York-based company, which provides home equity loans to high-risk borrowers, had 3,330 workers as of March 31. The company ran into trouble last year because of what it termed the "flight to quality" among investors....
   [Huh? With that kind of escapism, who needs "nose to the grindstone"? Today's CEOs are like the barbers of old. One answer to every problem - bleeding. "Got a problem? We'll get the basin, cut a small vein, and let a little blood. Or maybe apply a couple of leeches." Except in the case of today's CEOs, it's their own employees they're hemorrhaging. The altlernative? Cut hours for all, not jobs for a few, and a few more, and a few more.... It's going to have to come some day anyway. Humans just can't compete, on any routine tasks, with computers and robots that can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with just electricity and a few drops of oil. We either get sharing the vanishing work on a dynamically self-adjusting basis à la Timesizing, or revert to tribal barbarity like Somalia.]

   [Raytheon is the 'poster boy' for corporate welfare betrayed, leaving bleeding-heart legislators as laughing stocks.]
   

2. Raytheon cuts about 200 jobs at division, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, D5.
   ...The world's No. 3 aerospace and defense compay said it cut about 200 jobs in its engineering and construction unit during the second quarter as it works to reduce costs.... The cuts come on top of Raytheon's eliminating about 1,500 jobs last year. The Lexington-based company announced announced in January 1998 that it would cut 8,700 defense workers and 1,000 engineering employees.
   ["Defense workers" vs. "engineering employees." Oh no, we don't have a class structure here in America!]
   The workers left Raytheon through a program that provides benefits for employees who choose to go, spokesman Ed Powers said.
   [Yeah, we bet! - "Step right over here into our beautiful Soylent Green suicide parlour."
   [Raytheon execs are the clowns who whined for tax breaks in 1995, promising no job cuts. Dumb Massachusetts state legislators believed them with absolutely no guarantees or enforcement. And why were the politicians so defensive about jobs anyway, if we really have such an "economic boom"??? And yet, despite our "boom" (for the rich), municipal and state legislators all over the country have been caving in to this kind of "job blackmail" - Massachusetts itself did it AGAIN with Fidelity Investments the following year!]

3. Collins & Aikman Corp., NYT, C4.
   Charlotte, NC, the world's largest maker of automobile carpet, plans to move part of its fabric business in Adrian, Mich., to Mexico and cut at least 50 jobs, or about 17% of the affected plant's work force.
   [Death by 10,000 nicks. This company should be learning from its neighbor company in Charlotte, Nucor Steel, that you manipulate the workweek, not the workforce. They should be cutting 17% of their hours, not their staff, and spreading the work to keep everyone employed.]

8/17/99  2 downsizings Reported (total 1,675 additional + unspecified) -

1. Union Bank to cut 15% of work force, AP via NYT, C4.
   [A California bank] disclosed plans yesterday to shed 1,400 workers...in an effort to increase profits and expand other parts of its business. [This really shows the micro vs. macro contradiction of present-day primitive capitalism. CEOs as a group are naive enough to think they can increase profits by cutting jobs and decreasing their consumer base and their markets. Didn't they put us through this in the Roaring 20s? Why didn't they learn their lesson? Timesizing resolves the macro-micro contradiction by holding the workweek hostage to a new comprehensive unemployment rate that includes welfare, disability, homelessness and prisons. CEOs can go on cutting their own throats as much as they want by downsizing, but it's only going to ration workers more strictly by cutting the maximum allowable workweek per person, and that in turn will lead market forces to raise wages and proliferate training. And incidentally, it will probably reduce downsizings as market forces give CEOs a little more respect for their own employees.]
   Most of the layoffs will be in Southern California, although about 100 to 200 cuts will be in the San Francisco Bay area. The Unionbancal Corp., the bank's...parent, said the layoffs would improve pretax profits by $135 million.
   [That's nickels and dimes when you're damaging your own markets.]
   The company said the changes would allow the bank to expand its ATM network, open a new branch and improve Internet banking.
   [Don't they have this backwards? The facts are that their existing spread into ATMs and Internet banking have led them to think they can do without 15% of their workforce. The idea that work-saving technology somehow magically leaves jobs unaffected - without cutting the workweek - is nonsense.]
   When the company was created through the combination of Union Bank and Bank of California four years ago, it avoided the layoffs typical of bank mergers....
   [Well, that was four years of downsizings earlier, wasn't it. Four years when the American workforce has lost further ground and further respect. Four years of getting commoner and cheaper. A labor surplus enwrapping a skill shortage because employers say, "Why should we pay for training? Let all the extra jobseekers foot the bill for their own training." How did these banks avoid "the layoffs typical of bank mergers" (and all other mergers), we wonder? Probably not the smart way by cutting hours instead of jobs like Nucor, VW and Lincoln Electric. At any rate, the comment, and yesterday's announcement, highlight again the connection between mergers and downsizings. The Timesizing approach would keep everybody employed (and spending) by a 15% hours cut (to 34 hr/wk) instead of this self-bashing 15% staff cut.]

2. B. F. Goodrich to cut jobs and close plants, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   CHARLOTTE, NC, Aug. 16 -
   [How ironic! Goodrich should have learned from its neighbor based in Charlotte, its neighbor which is the most advance and flexible company in the world, Nucor Steel, which jerks around its workweek instead of its workforce.]
   ...The No. 1 U.S. maker of aircraft landing gear said today that it would close plants in New Jersey and Connecticut and cut 275 jobs as it digests its $2.2 billion purchase of Coltec Industries. Goodrich will eliminate about 150 jobs at its Naugatuck, Conn. plant by April.... The company, which is dealing with overcapacity at the plant, plans to close its Lewis Engineering and Delavan Process Instrumentation business, acquired from Coltec last month.
   [Why pay huge money for something only to turn around and destroy it? This is what passes for corporate strategy today? Pathetic! Instead of trying to simply GROW MARKETS, these cretins are only trying to destroy competition. They've got nothing positive to offer, just "Buy it and burn it." Just like GM did to the potentially renewable-fuel steam engines in the 1950s. This is stupid, primitive capitalism at its most suicidal. What a waste of money and talent. And what an impossibility to avoid another huge depression with this level of self-destructiveness and unextended self-interest. At least we're explicity seeing the word "overcapacity" in this article - a big word on the downramp to depression.]
   About 125 positions at BF Goodrich's plant in Cedar Knolls, NJ...are expected to be cut by the end of the year. The plant's production, and some design engineering jobs, will be moved.... BF Goodrich...employs about 27,000 people worldwide....
   [And poor pity every one of them with such stupid leadership, who could easily just trim hours and keep all their people together.]