Timesizing® Associates

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

10/30/99 Just For Feet, athletic shoe retailer, closing 85 stores, AP via NYT, B3.
...in the next several months as part of a move to return to profitability. The closings represent nearly half of the chain's specialty division, which operates stores under the names of Athletic Attic, Athletic Lady and Imperial Sports.... The company, which has stuggled with excess inventory and other problems, will continue to operate 151 of its trademark superstores and 88 smaller stores.
[Ah, "excess inventory" - that all-too-familiar phrase from 1929.]

10/29  5 More Downsizings Reported (totalling 5,672 jobs + unspecified) -
Greenspan thinks he's stopping wage increases (what he calls "inflation") by raising interest rates. Naaa. What's really stopping them is ongoing downsizings around the world. And by stopping wage increases, downsizings are stopping any chance of reversing the widening income gap and the weakening consumer markets. Increasingly, the people with the money already have everything they want, except free time.

1. Norsk plans cuts, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Norway's 2nd-largest company, Norsk Hydro, said it planned to sell assets worth $1.6b and reduce its work force by 6%, about 2,300 jobs, in an effort to reverse a 4-year drop in profit. Hydro will focus on expanding its energy and aluminum divisions while cutting costs in its [large but] unprofitable fertilizer business....

2. StorageTek will cut as many as 1,750 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The Storage Technology Corp., a storage product maker that was exploring a possible sale, said it would cut as [much as] 20% of its work force [of about 8750], after its 3d-quarter profit fell 91%.... StorageTek warned that it would miss earnings forecasts as customers delay purchases because of Year 2000 issues.
   [Issues of what? Storage products?!? Article should probably have said "because of Y2K problems" because we're talking about corporate computer tape storage systems here (not, e.g., product magazines) according to a longer article in 2/04/2000 NYT C4.]

3. PriceWaterhouseCoopers to trim 1,000 positions, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's largest accounting and consulting firm is cutting 1,000 support jobs in the U.S. to reduce costs as it plans to invest billions of dollars to expand the services it offers. The New York-based firm will dismiss 700 to 750 employees in the United States, and 250 jobs will be eliminated through attrition and a hiring freeze already in place.... The cuts will save about $91 million, which the company can then spend on acquisitions, training, technology and new services....
   [Training, did some mention training? What do these acquisition fans want with training?! Bet they just threw that in to throw us off.]

4. Arch Coal may close two mines and eliminate jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Arch Coal Inc., said yesterday that it might cut 622 jobs and close two southern West Virginia mines after a U.S. District Court ruling blocked the company, the 2d-largest U.S. coal producer, from expanding two sites. Arch Coal, based in St. Louis, could shutter its Hobet 21 mining complex, based in Boone and Lincoln Counties, and the Ruffner complex, in Logan County, as early as the end of the year.... After last week's ruling, West Virginia officials banned mines from building most new valley fills or expanding existing fills, which are used to store excess rock and build water retention structures. The fills are essential for mining in steep terrain, and both the Hobet and Ruffner complexes need to extend theirs to remain open, Arch Coal said.
   [It would be nice to have the other side of the story here, like, what's the environmental impact of new valley fills and expanded existing ones? They don't make these rules just for fun. But now, despite all *RMI's work, the Backward Brains can add this new example to their ammobelt to slam environmentalism for costing jobs. Isn't is funny how technology, however efficient in the short term, always "creates more jobs than it destroys," but environmental protection, however inefficient in the short term, always "costs thousands of jobs"?!]

5. EMC to take $100m charge for Data General [for transition costs & unspecified jobcuts], Bloomberg via Boston Globe, C4.
   ...The no.1 maker of data-storage systems for large corporations said it expects to take a 4th-quarter charge in excess of $100m for its [ 8/10] acquisition of Data General Corp.... The charge will be for transition costs and an unspecified number of job cuts....
   [Ah, again the lethal link twixt takeover & downsizing.]

1. [The bad news - they're downsizing, not timesizing. The good news - they're fighting takeover.]
   Under siege, NatWest to cut jobs, businesses - But hostile bidder scoffs at plan, by Bruce Stanley, AP via Boston Globe, C2.
   [And the less informative & got-it-backwards headline of the Times' version - ]
   Market Place - Natwest's hostile bid for the Bank of Scotland is turning out to look like an overly long soap opera, by Andrew Sorkin, NYT, C11.
   [Ouch, what a mistake!  BofS is bidding for NatWest, not NatWest for BofS!  This is definitely one of the big risks of us smartypants commentators - to get on a roll and make a glaring upfront booboo. Maybe he meant "NatWest's hostile bid FROM the Bank of Scotland...."  Ennyhoo - ]
   ...As part of its defense, Natwest [should be NatWest] also said it would cut 1,650 jobs, beyond the 10,000 job cuts already announced....
   [We did not previously count the 10,000 already announced, so we'll count them now.]
   Analysts said Natwest's [takeover defense] plan was a bit contradictory, because in many ways it mirrors the Bank of Scotland's plan to squeeze $1.7b in savings and value out of the bank, Britain's 3rd-largest, by selling off assets and laying off employees....
   [Yes folks, out there in the bizarre "real world," we get all combinations and permutations. Takeover then downsizing. Takeover & simultaneous downsizing. Downsizing in advance of takeover. And now, possibly the most bizarre of all - downsizing to prevent takeover (i.e., to prevent forced downsizing!). In the immortal words of Puck, "Lord, what fools these mortals be"!]

2. Carbide-Graphite Group Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Pittsburgh, will lay off 180 workers in St. Mary's, Pa., and Niagara Falls, NY.

3. Staffmark Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Fayetteville, Ark., a temporary-staffing and executive-recruiting company, dismissed or reassigned 80 employees and closed 12 offices.
   [Clearly Staffmark's own executive staff has missed the mark.]

1. Montreal Bank to cut [2450] jobs, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   Canada's 4th-largest bank by assets, Bank of Montreal, said it had designated 2,450 jobs for elimination, most through attrition. The company said that it hoped the cuts would help improve profits and streamline operations.... The bank also said it would begin restructuring its 32 business lines. Some branches will be closed.
   [Guess we can stop putting an accent over the "e" in "Bank of Montreal" now they've chickened out & moved their headquarters to Toronto.]

2. El Paso Energy cuts 607 jobs after acquiring Sonat [for $5.5b on 3/16 & Bonneville Pacific 9/21 & Crystal Gas Storage 10/16 (below)], Dow Jones via NYT, C4.
   ...a transaction that creates the largest natural gas transmission system in North America, with 40,000 miles of pipeline.
   [What's the use of that much pipe when all your consumers have been downsized?]
   El Paso said it now employed 4,575 people, compared with 5,500 people at the end of last year.

3. [40] Job cutbacks made at FCB New York, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C14.
   ...[reducing] its staff of about 820 employees by less than 5%...as part of a reorganization intended to improve efficiency. The layoffs, which had been expected [oh, "that makes it all right" then], involve most of the departments at FCB New York, part of the FCB Worldwide unit of True North Communications.
   [Ah, injecting fear into the workplace via layoffs drains truth from corporate communications. That's why Deming told the Japanese to "banish fear from the workplace" (= his 8th "Point for Management") - and they were all right as long as they listened to him. The more fear in the workplace, the less candid feedback, and the less feedback, the less corporate longevity.]

1. Mitsubishi Motors reportedly to fire 10,000], AP via Boston Globe, D2.
   ...in a bid to boost competitiveness....
   [Ah, the classic bind of today's short-sighted CEOs - how to boost competitiveness without bashing markets (by downsizing consumers).]
   The cuts [at Japan's 4th-largest auto maker] will be achieved mainly through attrition, including reducing the number of hires and utilizing early retirement programs.... Under the plan, Mitsubishi Motors's total group work force will be reduced [by 9,900] to 78,900 employees from 88,800 [currently, or cutting 12,400 jobs (13.6%) from their 1997-98 level of 91,300] by March 2004, for a reduction of about 11%....
   [Ahso, they're just like Nissan who just clobbered 14% of their workforce on 10/19 below. So the firestorm of downsizing has started in Japan. Maybe the tight-knit Japanese will get worried enough about it fast enough that they'll be forced into timesizing instead, just keep the population crowded onto their little islands from splitting into warring factions of employed and disemployed. (The info added in square brackets is from tomorrow's article, 10/27, "Mitsubishi plans cuts," Reuters via NYT, C4.)]

2. NCR to cut 1,500 jobs in shift away from PCs, Bloomberg via Bos Globe, D2.
   ...The world's largest maker of automated teller machines plans to cut...4.5% of its work force as the company decreases its focus on low-profit computers and bank systems.... NCR [née National Cash Register] has been trying to distance itself from the business of selling personal computers and low-end servers, which control PC networks. The company is phasing out bank systems that automate branch operations such as loan and account services....
   [The Bloomberg version of this story is superior in everything but telling us what NCR is moving toward, so, let's look at the Reuters version in the Times - ]
   NCR announces plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The changes would help the company focus on three higher-growth businesses: ATMs, retail store automation software, and data warehouses, the software used to manage large corporate databases....

1. N.T.T. to reorganize, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The world's largest phone company, the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. of Japan, confirmed that it would reorganize within three years by cutting jobs at local units.... Under the plan, NTT will transfer some employees to its affiliates and not fill the positions of people who retire. The company would not specify how many positions would be eliminated.

1. Big wholesale grocery operation to eliminate jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The Fleming Cos., one of the biggest U.S. wholesale grocery operations, plans to cut 700 jobs, or almost 2% of its work force, to cut costs. Fleming, which has about 39,000 employees, said it would make the cuts the next 18 months as it centralizes its corporate functions in two national centers, in Dallas and Oklahoma City. The job cuts follow Fleming's announcement in January that it would cut 220 jobs, or 12% of its corporate staff, to streamline its business and improve profit margins....
   [You know, it's almost as if management takes delight in terrifying employees with layoff announcements. This carries over to reducing raise requests and less wage-push "inflation." But making fear our number one inflation-fighting tool has always seemed risky and costly to us, and it's certainly contributed to the loudly lamented income gap which will never be narrowed without higher wages (and we don't mean "for top executives only"). And we've never regarded "wage-push inflation" as anything but a contradiction in terms anyway. Higher wages is good, inflation is bad. Higher wages centrifuges wealth and dynamizes markets. The kind of inflation that is bad is runaway inflation that keeps otherwise useful people wasting time changing pricetags daily or even hourly. It starves people on fixed incomes and keeps employees racing from the payroll dept. to the grocery store while their pay can still buy something. The last familiar hyperinflation nightmare was in Germany in the early 1920s, although Brazil in the early 1990s came close. The German story is told in Max Shapiro's "The Penniless Billionaires" (1980). Controlled inflation is actually a positive thing, since it operates to penalize the large less-active stores of capital while refurbishing the link between market-demanded skills&employment on one hand and monetary compensation on the other. By acting as a centrifuging mechanism in this way, controlled inflation has been an integrating and balancing force in large economies, strengthening the centrifugal action on money, which is always in danger of being overwhelmed by the centripetal action whereby the "rich get richer and the poor poorer" - ergo, a split and disintegrating society.
   [Personally, we believe that fear in the workplace damages morale and productivity, and we're backed up by one of the world's economic successes, Japan in the 1980s, which followed Ed Deming's "14 points for management", at the center (8th) of which was "Banish fear from the workplace."]

2. After 30 years, Bradford Furniture to close its doors [with unspecified job losses], by Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, C6.
   ...A local 6-store chain...Littleton-based Bradford's reason for closing is somewhat similar to the rationale give by Barry and Eliot Tatelman for their decision to sell Jordan's Furniture and Co. to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. earlier this month [see our 10/12/99 goodnews story]. The Tatelmans said the proposed sale would give their children the financial freedom to pursue any career they want.
   Bradford co-owner Hank Greenberg, 72, also cited family reasons. Neither his children nor the children of his partner, 68-year-old Tony Fereira, wanted to work in the family business, so the pair plans to close stores in Burlington, Danvers, Natick, Norwood, Pembroke, and Nashua before the end of the year. "Our business was extremely good last year," said Greenberg, who added that annual sales were running in the range of $18 million. "This is not a forced closing."...
   [Great, so that puts it on par with a mass layoff by a company in profit.]
   Greenberg said he and his parrtner attempted to sell Bradford. "We were too small for the bigbox people who could afford us," Greenberg said. And the mom-and-pops who would have like to buy Bradford "couldn't afford us."
   [How about a deal that would turn the business over to employees?! A non-profit consulting firm that specializes in this approach is the *International Cooperative Association, now refocused from cooperatives onto employee ownership generally.]
   Despite some Internet upstarts, Greenberg doesn't believe Web retailers will have much luck selling furniture. Furniture is about "feel and fashion," Greenberg said. "You want to sit on a sofa before you buy it."...

1. [Here's some strained spin-doctoring!]
   U.S. hiring possible, NYT, C4.
   DETROIT, Oct. 19 - In eliminating 1,400 American jobs [=11.7% of 12,000 total, see yesterday's story] as part of a broad corporate restructuring, a Nissan spokesman in the United States said today that the company might add workers at plants in Tennessee.
   The spokesman, Jason Vines, said employment might be increased at Nissan's assembly plant and engine factory if new models are successful....
   [Here is a perfect example, in a nutshell, of what's wrong with those who criticize advocates of timesizing instead of downsizing for believing in a fixed "lump of labor" which must be shared for a sustainably prosperous economy - downsizings (here "eliminating jobs") are immediate; upsizings (here "adding workers") are delayed and uncertain (here "employment MIGHT be increased IF new models are successful"). In other words, the rehiring is pure faith, the "substance of things unseen." This article should be titled, "U.S. hiring possible, U.S. firing actual."  Consumers can't maintain their spending patterns on faith, and in a big complex economy, the lag between layoff and re-employment can and has become signficant. Not to mention the recent trend of re-employment at lower wages.
   [All this weakening of labor has induced stagnation of wages over the last 30 years and that in turn has allowed the astronomical concentration of spending power in this economy and throughout the world. The problem is that as spending power gets concentrated, it doesn't get spent, and we get the classic pre-depression bubble. Basically, so few people are getting so much money that they don't have time (let alone need) to spend it - they barely have time to throw it into a mutual fund. And this is money that in a balanced economy, balanced between the labor supply and the employment supply, would automatically stay decentralized at the grassroots where the multitudes have time (and need) to spend it, thus maintaining and growing general markets at levels that would boggle our simple-minded "just wanna get rich" economy of today.]

2. Creative BioMolecules to cut work force by 39%, Dow Jones via Boston Globe, E9.
   ...The [Hopkinton, Mass.-based] biopharmaceutical company..\..plans to cut its staff by nearly 39% to 43 [27 jobcuts] from 70 and focus resources on developing products for the treatment of stroke and renal disease.... The redirection will make available several million dollars originally budgeted to support research programs in 2000....
   [The alternative? A 39% hours & pay cut for all instead of a 39% job cut for 27 people. How's a 24.4-hour workweek sound? And people could spend their extra time looking for a change at their own pace - or, thinking about how the company could "make available several million dollars" without such radical self-amputation, or whether it's really so necessary to "make available several million dollars" for unnamed purposes in the first place, or if the purposes are implicit in its expecting "to submit investigational new drug applications to begin clinical trials in stroke and renal disease in 2000," why weren't these submissions and trials budgeted in the first place? In a word, maybe, as in so many cases like this, the firm needs to fire its top management for poor planning instead of laying off 39% of its employees.]

1. [Now the samurai are getting active again - Brazilian samurai!
   [(In case you're curious - the goals of smart CEOs of the future as opposed to the kamekazi dunces of today? - to boost overall market dynamism by employing as many people at as high wages as possible, - to build vast corporate empires of employees, however low the workweek, instead of pandering to the unearned profits of speculators (oh, sorry) "investors," who merely trade stocks, producing...nothing) -]
   [21,000] Cuts by Nissan are deeper than forseen - [3] Plants will be closed, a rarity in Japan, by Stephanie Strom, NYT, C1.
   [Yeah, because they've usually had more sense than us, but then they hired a Brazilian "turnaround" expert - temporary turn-up for stockholders, indefinite turn-down for employees and morale and domestic markets.... Note how the NYT headline has omitted the startling figures.]
   Under the three-year plan [this is starting to sound like Communism], presented by Nissan's aggressive new [Brazilian COO] chief operating officer, Carlos Ghosn, three plants will be closed and 21,000 jobs eliminated [14% of their workforce according to mention in 10/27/99 "Mitsubishi plans to cut...," Bos Globe, D2], most of them in Japan. Nissan will also halve its supplier base and close 10% of its dealerships, with the objective of returning to profitability in the next fiscal year, starting April 1.
   [Oh, he's "aggressive" - so it's all OK.  Watch for more cuts next year, because this downsizing is starting a huge cascade of downsized spending and consumer markets in Japan and particularly in their own domestic customer base. Think about it: 21,000 people are going to be making their present Nissans last a lot longer, not to mention half its suppliers and 10% of its dealers and their employees. And stay tuned for the classic "I'm just a victim" disclaimer - ]
   "I understand that a lot of people will feel like orphans [how about 'like starvers'] in this plan," Mr. Ghosn said at a briefing for reporters, where the details were released. "But we have no choice,..."
   [Sure you had a choice, you moron!  You could have trimmed hours and pay a little for everyone (including yourself!), and kept everyone employed - and spending. Check a few case studies like VW, Nucor and Lincoln Electric.]
   "...and the fact we have no choice is the strength of the plan."
   [Yeah sure. Face it, the plan has no strength - just reverberating stupidity and emptiness. The fact you see no choice manifests your own lack of imagination and far-sightedness. And your dumb Japanese master - who called in a Brazilian, presumably to help the Japanese economy be more like Brazil? - what weasel words does he have in this self-inflicted bloodbath?]
   He was echoed by Yoshikazu Hanawa, Nissan's president. "There is no other alternative for us," Mr. Hanawa said. "In order for us to survive, we must implement this survival plan."
   [How low the Japanese have come in ten years after they started imitating our kamekazi downsizing "strategy"! After sending them an American gem, Ed Deming, whose vision saved them through the 1980s while we were already starting to plunge the wooden sword into our own workforce&domesticmarket guts, we started bugging them to imitate us in our stupidity, and now we'll both end up down the 3rd-world hole with Brazil.]
   ..\..[The] radical overhaul plan...will...reverberate more broadly through the [Japanese] economy....
   [No kidding.]
   Nissan did not specify how many of the job losses would be in the United States, where the company employs 12,000 people, slightly more than half of them working at two manufacturing plants in Tennessee....
   ["The chickens come home to roost."  The U.S. job losses are specified tomorrow to be 1400 - that is, 11.66°% of Nissan's U.S. workforce.]

2. Eastman Chemical to eliminate 1,200 jobs, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...of its 16,000 jobs, or about 7.5% of the work force, as part of a plan to reduce expenses by $200 million next year.
   [Ah yes, employees - they're such nasty expenses - today's stockholder capitalism would be perfect if it could only think of a way to completely do without employees. If only companies that issued stock didn't need any employees - or customers. Well, with Internet stocks like Amazon.com and others, they don't need profits so presumably they don't need customers. Let's see how long that lasts.]
   The company said it expected to save about $100m by reducing employment.... It said termination packages would be offered to employees in the United States who are eligible for full retirement benefits by the end of the year. The company said the cuts would affect mostly managerial and professional employees and their support groups.
   [And we can soon automate the functions of the wage workers and get rid of them.]
   Eastman makese plastics, chemicals and fibers.
   [Piece of cake to robotize!]

3. Dana to close 14 plants and 29 warehouses, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's largest maker of light-truck axles said yesterday that it would close 14 plants and 29 distribution centers to cut costs in its replacement-parts business....
   [During a boom time for light trucks & ORVs invading the family-car market? Go figure! And that's gotta mean a lotta lost jobs - but no numbers admitted ... untill 12/21/99 - Xmas week??! - when 1,000 cuts will be announced.]
   Dana also said its third-quarter profit from operations rose to $172m...from $136m...a year earlier.
   [Here we go again - companies with rising profits downsizing anyway = kamekazi management "working the float" between when they cut costs and when their cut job costs complete the domino effect and start costing them markets. Used to be we were scared of the Communists for triggering the domino effect. But now that we have our own business schools teaching it and CEOs doing it, who needs the Commies?]

1. C. M. Offray & Son Inc., NYT, B3.
   ...Chester, NJ, a ribbon maker, said it would move more than 75 manufacturing jobs to Hagerstown, Md., as part of a consolidation of operations in five other states and Canada.
   [Hmm, Chester, NJ to Hagerstown, MD, 180 miles as the crow flies and probably 225-275 miles as the highway winds. At least they're not talking Tijuana.
   [The phrase, "in five other states and Canada," provides an example of what Canadians call the "Canada as trailer state" formula, like Canada doesn't have 10 provinces and even if it does, Americans can't be bothered. After all, why in the world should they? Canada only shares America's longest border - the famed "longest undefended border in the world" - & the "true north strong & free" has not drawn up plans to invade the USA since 1925. Not even the delectable Canadian buttertart has been able to invade the USA. Only a sprinkling of us quixotic Canuck expats, down here in this health-uninsured purgatory till we save the world, have blent into the Yankee woodwork by practising, sorry, practicing over and over again, "wow, cow, aout, and abaout." Pretty good, eh, oops, huh?]

2. ITC Learning Corp., NYT, B3.
   ...Herndon, Va., which develops multimedia-training systems for businesses, government agencies and schools, said it would cut its work force of 140 in half [=70 jobcuts] as it struggles with losses.
   [Self-advertised creative types, of all people! should be the first to uphold human values such as togetherness and cut hours, not human livelihoods. Think how creative ITC would be with a 50% workweek cut (20-hour workweek!) instead of this disgraceful 50% workforce cut. Imagine what reinvestment of any de facto/prorated overtime earnings would do for them, especially if it was reinvestment in in-house sales & marketing training, instead of amputating fully half their company and leaving the surviving half hemorrhaging badly in morale. Timesizing is not rocket science. Check out our working models.]

1. Wausau to buy commercial insurance business, AP via NYT, C4.
   The Wausau Insurance Companies yesterday announced that it was buying an insurance division of a Philadelphia-based company, weeks after announcing it was cutting 500 jobs....
   [Hey this is a new twist - the layoff comes BEFORE the takeover this time! Land sakes! you watch the passing parade of reality long enough and you'll see every combination and permutation, no matter how bizarre. Truly "truth is stranger than fiction."]

2. Quest Diagnostics Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Teterboro, NJ, a medical diagnostic testing services provider, said it would shut one Boston-area lab and eliminate about 80 jobs to consolidate its New England operations.

1. [Raytheon again (barf).]
   Raytheon shares fall 44% on profit warning - Defense firm says sales, profits will fall below forecasts, and it plans to cut 2,380 jobs, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, D1.
   ...Raytheon also said it plans to eliminate about 2,380 jobs, including 140 from its Lexington headquarters and 200 elsewhere in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The layoffs are in addition to the thousands of positions the company has shed in recent years.
   Daniel Burnham, Raytheon's chief executive, said the company's condition "fills me with anger, embarrassment, and guilt."
   [Good! You could make it better by cutting hours instead of people - and including your own hours and pay in there! Your mention of "guilt" rings hollow when you keep making other people suffer for your mistakes.]
   He said he hoped the company's candor about its difficulties would help Raytheon "reestablish credibility" with investors.
   [Forget about "investors", you moron! You don't have any "investors" You only have speculators like everyone else. Get your priorities straight for a change and worry about "reestablishing credibility" with your employees and your customers. Let the idiots in Wall Street take care of themselves, and as soon as possible, buy back your stock and go private.]

2. [Another charlatan unmasked - ]
   Franklin Covey dismisses 420 more employees, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The Franklin Covey Co., whose co-founder Stephen R. Covey wrote the best-selling book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," [shouldn't that be "highly stressed out people"?] said yesterday that it would dismiss 420 more employees and take a $43 million Q4 charge to cover severance, site closings and discontinued products. The company...provides leadership training products, including the Franklin Planner personal organizer....
   [Physician, heal thyself! And here's a tip - you're not going to do it by downsizing. But we note that you're already wading deeply in the doodoo of self-amputation...]
   It...has dismissed about 180 workers so far under a plan to cut about 600, or 14% of its work force.

3. Northrop Grumman to trim 300 management jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The fifth-biggest U.S. military contractor,...based in Los Angeles, makes the fuselage for the 747 jetliner and parts for most other Boeing planes [and] Seattle-based Boeing is slashing 747 production. The latest job cuts are in addition to 3,700 that Northrop plans to eliminate out of 10,000 in its commercial aircraft unit. It took pretax charges of $125 million against its 1998 earnings, mostly because of the 747 cutbacks. Northrop's shares fell....
   [And maybe it's time we stopped giving tax deductions for downsizing.]

1. Denali Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Houston, a maker of underground storage tanks, said it was getting rid of nearly 8% of its work force as "sharp declines" in demand led it to cut costs and take charges against earnings.
   [(Don't tell us how many jobs or anything! = media deterioration proceeds apace....)
   [And check out the dopiest, crudest face of management here - "get rid of" employees indeed!
   [A company named after the great national park in Alaska should have the sense to maintain employment and markets by "all sacrificing together" and doing an 8% hours & pay cut for all, like advanced companies everywhere, instead of destroying a few employees completely - and then next year maybe a few more, then a few more etc. This is how the fog of depression "creeps in on little cat feet."  Let's see. An 8% hours cut from a 40-hr workweek would give Denali a nice ecological 36.8-hour workweek - definitely a step in the right direction, especially for employees who are single parents.]

2. Raytheon consolidates commercial units - Five components folded into one headed by Delbert E. Lippert, by Alex Pham, Boston Globe, D1.
   ...its fragmented commercial electronics businesses... Raytheon Marine... Raytheon RF Components... Elcan... Night Vision... and Raytheon Telecommunications....
   [Oh, 5 wildly different groups under 1 umbrella really makes a LOT of sense and will INDUBITABLY make a huge difference. (They're flailing.)]
   The reorganization is not expected to result in layoffs, nor will it require workers to relocate, at least not immediately....
   ["Methinks the lady doth protest too much." You know, a lot of employers are getting incompetent at their basic job - employing.]

10/08  3 Downsizings Reported (4614 +unspecified) -

1. Chase planning to move 3,500 jobs, leader, NYT, C1, & article by Leslie Eaton, NYT, A28.
   The Chase Manhattan Corp., the largest corporate employer in New York City, is moving 10% of its jobs - 3,500 positions - to Florida, Texas and Massachusetts, the company told its workers yesterday.
   [Anytime they refer to you as "workers" instead of "employees," you know they see you as expendable worker ants or costly and risky communists and they're really going to kick you around.]
   This may well be the largest exodus of jobs from the city.... Beginning next year, Chase will move two entire back-office units, from entry-level positions to technology workers to senior managers.... One of the businesses transfers money for companies; the other involves tracking and processing stock and bond trades. By relocating its workers, the bank will cut its costs significantly....
   [They're trying to make this sound like 3500 people are really going to move thousands of miles away, but then there's this statement - ]
   Salaries, real estate costs, taxes, telecommunications charges and utilities are all lower in Tampa, Fla., and Dallas, where most of the jobs are to be relocated. Some would also be moved to Lowell, Mass.
   [Let's replay that with a focus - ]
   Salaries...are...lower in Tampa...and Dallas.
   [Does this mean 3500 people are going to get a relocation salary cut? Doesn't sound like much of an incentive to move, does it. It'll be interesting to see what percentage of this "move" turns out to be a "fire here, hire there."]
   But the savings are so big that Chase did not even approach the city for financial or logistical help to try to keep the jobs in New York... There was no way the city could come up with enough money....
   [Well, there's a blessing at least! One less "poor little rich kid" using job blackmail to whine for handouts from taxpayers. Contrast the situation in Massachusetts, where a few years before Fidelity Investments, in record profit, threatened to take their jobs out of Mass. unless they got a payoff, the corporate basketcase in Downsizing#3 below started the whining - ]

2. Molson plans to close a brewery in Ontario, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Canada's biggest beer maker will close its brewery in Barrie, Ont. next September and dismiss 414 workers.... Molson is cutting costs and focusing on its Toronto brewery. It has cut [700] jobs this year, 19% of its 3600 workers.
   [They actually printed "70 jobs this year" but since 19% of 3600 is 684, we figure they goofed. Barrie is only a small city and this will have a significant impact.]
   Including Barrie, the company has seven breweries in Canada. Molson has been eliminating jobs and selling businesses unrelated to beer in the year to help its stagnant stock....
   [Great! - bashing employees and customers to help its least-committed stakeholders, stock holders!]

3. Raytheon sounds warning on orders from Pentagon, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, C1.
   [Yes folks, it's crybaby Raytheon again. Aren't you just SICK of them? Here they go again...]
   Raytheon Co. said it now expects the Pentagon to order 20% fewer bombs and missiles than previously forecast to replace munitions used in last spring's Yugoslavia air war.... The company warned the setbacks will lead to further job cuts in Massachusetts and elsewhere ....
   [Well ain't that just too bad. We've never had much sympathy for people who make their living arranging for other people's dying, and after this ongoing whining by Raytheon, year after year after year, maybe it's time they either shut up, admitted bankruptcy, or got the hell out of Massachusetts! They're not good enough to waste any timesizing advice on. Shut'em up or get'em outa here, and let's get on with "pounding our swords into ploughshares" (Isaiah 2:4)! We'll never be able to do that if we have to keep putting up with a bunch of big babies with a vested interest in war.]

1. American Home Products to eliminate 700 jobs, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...or about 13% of the unit's worldwide work force. The cuts are part of a wide-ranging reorganization of the Cyanamid unit, which is based in Parsippany, NJ. Company officials said they were trying to make their manufacturing, sales and marketing efforts more efficient....
   [That'll make 'em more efficient, all right - if a demoralized unit can be called "efficient." It'll also make their best market, their own employees, a little more "efficient," that is, smaller. Incredibly, in our current primitive state of economic evolution, contemporary management theory still has no way to gain operational efficiency without shooting itself in the foot by demoralizing staff and trimming its own top (employee) markets. Of course, some companies are far ahead of the curve on this, and they include Nucor, Lincoln Electric and VW.]

2. Good Humor-Breyers, NYT, C4.
   ...Green Bay, Wis., a unit of Unilever NV, said it would close its ice cream plant in Richmond and transfer or dismiss about 190 workers.

1. Telecom Italia plans [13,000] cuts, Dow Jones via NYT, C4.
   ...in its fixed-line operations, 9,000 of them through attrition....

2. Glaxo [Wellcome] to cut 3,400 [6.2%], Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...from its worldwide work force of 55,000....

3. Tennant Co., NYT, C4.
   ...Minneapolis, said it would lay off 150 employees, or 7% of its work force...in a restructuring plan.

4. Earthgrains Co., NYT, C4.
   ...St. Louis, said it would close a plant in Johnson City, Tenn. and cut 95 jobs to streamline operations.
   [The trouble with downsizing is that it streamlines markets as well, especially when everybody's doin' it, doin' it, doin' it....]

10/02  4 Downsizings Reported (total 2820 + unspecified) -

1. Gold mine layoffs, by Henri Cauvin, NYT, B2.
   The weeklong rally in gold prices was not enough to stave off job cuts at one South African mine. Following through on plans announced in August, the joint venture of Vancouver-based Placer Dome Inc. and Western Areas Ltd. of South Africa laid off about 2,500 miners at its mine near Johannesburg. The National Union of Mine Workers said it would challenge the layoffs in court.
   [The future will have hours cuts, not layoffs.]

2. York International set to cut about 1,200 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   ...The world's largest industrial refrigeration company said yesterday that it would...shut 3 European plants [and] miss Q3 earnings estimates because of weaker sales in Latin America and the integration of Sabroe AS, a Danish supplier of refrigeration systems, which it acquired in June....
   [There you have it once again - the lethal takeover-to-downsizing connection. And this takeover was such a great idea that York can't even make its earnings estimates. "Lord, what fools these mortals be." And who gets immediately hurt? Ordinary employees, while the people who made the stupid decision feel nothing - this is a feedback system? With timesizing, everyone sacrifices together, including top executives, so the responses are a lot sooner, smarter, and long-term oriented.]

3. Anicom Inc., NYT, B2.
   ...Rosemont, Ill., said it would take a Q3 charge of $12m, resulting in a loss, and dismiss 120 workers as it cuts costs by closing warehouses.

4. Aztec Technology plans layoff, Dow Jones via Boston Globe, F1.
   Aztec Technology Partners Inc. will reduce its work force by about 6% and...plans to close its Caulfield, Ohio, operation and cut staff at its Trumbull, Conn. office and in its Boston-based hardware maintenance/repair business....
   [Here a switch. Usually the media tell us the number of cuts, not the percentage of the firm's workforce. This time they slipped up and got it backwards.
   [At any rate, Aztec should be doing a 6% hours cut, not staff cut, but wasn't it the ancient Aztecs who did human sacrifices where they cut out people's still-beating hearts & rolled their spurting bodies down the steep step pyramids? There's a name for what we're still putting up with today - "Aztec economics."]