Timesizing® Associates - Homepage

---

Timesizing News, October 1-15, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Sq, Cambridge MA 02238 USA 617-623-8080

10/15/2001  2 weekend glimmers of timesizing -

1. Europe's railways face strike disruption, Reuters 12:55 10-14-01 via AOLNews.
   Train services faced disruption in several European countries for several days from Sunday night as railway workers in Belgium and France were due to go on strike to demand more jobs and investment....
   In France, rail unions were mobilising many of the country's 180,000 rail staff for a strike from Monday evening until early on Wednesday morning.... French unions are dovetailing their strike with wider public service protests and stoppages called by unions over recruitment [or lack of it] and the implementation of the 35-hour week in France.

2. Lufthansa mulls four-day work week, AP-NY-10-14-01 1630EDT via AOLNews.
   FRANKFURT...- Lufthansa is considering a four-day work week in an attempt to avoid layoffs to compensate for losses suffered after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the airline's chief executive said in an interview published Sunday. Juergen Weber said Lufthansa is working together with unions and employee representatives to come up with a way to cover losses without slashing jobs, including flexible working hours and a shorter workweek.
   "Implementing a four-day workweek with reduced salaries still has the advantage that employees are able to keep their jobs and when the crisis is over, the company can quickly increase capacity again," Weber told the "Bild am Sonntag" weekly.
   [Bingo!]
   A spokesman for Lufthansa confirmed the company was considering various flexible work schedules to reduce costs without layoffs. Other cuts were being considered in the service area, such as fewer free drinks and snacks, said the spokesman, who declined to be named.
   [Huh? Who's he think he is, an editorialist of The Economist?]
   Weber said the company has already implemented cost-saving measures, including a hiring freeze and limiting overtime and vacation.
   [Huh? Limiting vacation is the opposite of what they want to do when they don't have the work or the revenue.]
   It has also cut back on flight schedules and postponed orders for new planes.

1. Employers 'using attack to shed unwanted staff', by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles, The Independent (UK) 12 Oct 2001 via RadioTony.
   [Takes a Brit to get honest enough to disclose the extent of emergency timesizing throughout our economy? -]
   ...Across the hospitality industry, anywhere between one and three million people are estimated to have lost their jobs. Even those who are still nominally working have had their hours cut from a "full" 40 hours [our quotes - ed.] to the equivalent of just two or three days a week.
   [At the standard but often-exceeded 8 hours a day, "the equivalent of two or three days a week" is the equivalent of 16- to 24-hour workweeks.]
   Most are either immigrants with limited prospects for finding other jobs, or former welfare recipients who cannot go back to the old regime of state subsistence [i.e., subsidies, i.e., welfare] because it has been abolished [i.e., time-capped]....
   [If the hours-trimming reaction to downturn is so widespread throughout the largest economy in the world, you have to ask, why isn't it part of MBA training in business schools? For that matter, why isn't it an acknowledged part of the curriculum in college and university economics departments? (For some hints, see our 'collapse' news today, 10/13/2001.) This has to be right up there among the top three gaps in US education today.]

2. [Well, there's a Britisher in L.A. (above) who thinks people in "hospitality" are down to 2-3 days a week. Here's an AP reporter in D.C. who thinks people in the hotel industry (difference from "hospitality"??) are down to just 1-2 days -]
   Tourism says it's hurting, by Christopher Thorne, AP-NY-10-12-01 1631EDT via AOLNews.
   WASHINGTON - The tourism industry came to Capitol Hill, looking for help to deal with big losses after the terrorist attacks.... The tourism industry is vital to the country's economy, employing almost 8m people and generating more than $170B in payroll. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, though, waves of canceled trips, tours and vacations have forced tens of thousands of layoffs.... Across the country, half the hotel industry's 2 million workers have been either laid off or have seen their work week cut to just one or two days..\..
   Senators listened Friday as travel agents, hotel operators, government officials and others painted a dire picture of the nation's $528B tourism industry. They asked Congress for grants, government-backed loans and federal spending to promote travel.
   Senators were receptive, though it's unclear how much they can do.... Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., warned that Congress probably won't be as forthcoming with money for tourism as it was with the $15B airline industry bailout....
   [But hey, isn't the airline bailout tantamount to a tourism bailout? And what about the $600 tax rebate?!]

3. G.M. and Ford announce lowered production levels, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   The General Motors Corp. [will] idle five plants next week and curtail work at a sixth, affecting 11,850 workers, in its largest production cutback since the end of February.... Most of the GM plants - in Michigan, Kansas, Wisconsin, Georgia and Ontario - produce cars, whose sales have been hurt by the slowdown in orders from daily rental agencies since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, GM said. Because of decreased air travel since the attacks, business at many car rental agencies serving airline customers has dropped, forcing them to cut costs and orders for new vehicles.

4. G.M. and Ford announce lowered production levels, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The Ford Motor Co., the world's second-largest automaker, [will] idle its Avon Lake, Ohio, minivan plant next week, affecting about 2,200 hourly workers. The plant makes the Mercury Villager and the Nissan Quest for the Nissan Motor Co....

5. Paris museums close or open free as workers strike, Reuters 08:47 10-12-01 via AOLNews.
   A clutch of key tourist sights in Paris including the Arc de Triomphe, ...Notre Dame...the Musée d'Orsay..., the Pompidou Center [and] the Pantheon..\..were closed Friday by a strike of a shorter working week. But...other draws, including the Louvre museum...were free to the public because the strike meant there were not enough staff to run ticket booths, trades union officials said.
   Workers at Paris' state-owned museums and galleries have been granted additional leave under moves to introduce a 35-hour week, but they say they cannot take the extra vacation because no one has been hired to replace them....
   [Wonder what the rationale behind this "additional leave" is. Maybe it's actually comp time for when employees should just be working 35 hours/week but are actually being pressured to keep working the old 39 hours/week in France.]
   The strike began Oct. 9, but sites had been open as normal until Friday..\.. "The museums risk staying closed, or free, until the government agrees to a deal. Discussions have deadlocked and I don't know how long this could last," one trades union leader, Camel Hesni, said. [However,] tourism in Paris, the world's most visited city, has [declined] as jittery Americans and other visitors stay at home after last month's hijacked plane attacks on the United States.

6. [And speaking of odd reasons for cutting working hours (see 10/11/2001 #2, below) -]
   Brazil: Four-day week to save energy, by Larry Rohter, NYT, A4.
   Responding to the failure of the northeastern region to cut electricity consumption by 20%, as required in the emergency consumption by 20%, as required in the emergency rationing plan that went into effect four months ago, the government has ordered a four-day work week in the nine-state area beginning later this month. The 50m residents have cut electricity use by little more than half the mandated amount. With hot summer weather on the way and a drought still prevailing, the government imposed the harsher measures in order to avoid California-style rolling blackouts.
   [All apropos of people who cluck disgustedly, "Oh, they'll NEVER cut the workweek!"]

1. Canada delays airline worker layoffs, AP-NY-10-11-01 1146EDT via AOLNews.
   Air Canada received a setback for its cost-cutting plans when the Canadian Industrial Relations Board rejected layoff notices issued this week [Tuesday] to more than 1,000 union workers...the 1,281 members of the Canadian Auto Workers Union.... In rejecting the layoffs, the labor board ruled that a contract guaranteeing job security until April 2004 had to be honored.... Buzz Hargrove, president of the Auto Workers Union, said the labor board ordered the airline and union to continue negotiations on ways to reduce the work force, such as early retirement packages and reduced work weeks..\..
   Air Canada...announced 4,000 layoffs in August, then added-on another 5,000 and reduced its flights by 20% in late September due to decreased traffic and canceled flights in the aftermath of the attacks.
   [Air Canada was also in our timesizing news on 10/02 #2 below, 9/26 #2, and 7/05 #1.]

2. French labor strike in fourth day, AP-NY-10-11-01 2033EDT via AOLNews.
   Nearly a dozen of Paris' major tourist attractions...were closed on Thursday as workers struck for a fourth day over the government's enforcement of a shorter workweek.
   [Or rather its lack of enforcement of the intended purpose - more hiring -]
   The workers stayed away to protest the government's application of a plan to reduce the work week from 39 hours to 35 hours. Many workers say they cannot take the extra time that is due to them because no one has been hired to replace them.
   [So the government isn't even enforcing its own purposes at its own federally owned museums. Brilliant.]
   Seven major unions threatened to extend the strike if talks Thursday with Culture Minister Catherine Tasca failed to open further negotiations about creating more jobs....
   [In some ways, France is demonstrating how not to cut the workweek. We demoed how not to craft shorter-hours legislation in 1933 (e.g., make it rigid), and now France is demoing how not to implement it (e.g., apply it everywhere but the government first).]

3. ANALYSIS - Brazil labor bill kicks up fresh controversy, by Shasta Darlington, Reuters 08:37 10-11-01 via AOLNews.
   RIO DE JANEIRO - A new Brazilian bill that could help avoid layoffs has economists cheering, but irate labor unions accuse the government of sacrificing worker rights instead of fixing the economy. The bill...would enable labor unions and employers to negotiate contractual changes that would override famously pro-workers that lay our strict labor relations. For example, unions and employers could agree to shorten the work week, lower wages, parcel out the obligatory Christman bonus or break up the four-week vacation period into smaller mini-holidays despite laws to the contrary....
   [The good news is that shortening the workweek is first on the list. The bad news is that it's right next to lowering wages, which in the long run is the opposite to what it does. Plus it's on a list that unions in Brazil fear, revealing that they are ignorant of the source and basis of their leverage and bargaining power, namely, avoiding overall labor surplus by making sure the workweek levels come down as levels of labor-saving technology go up.]

1. AIZ - Air New Zealand reorganization, Company Announcements 10 Oct 2001 14:05 via AOLNews.
   Air New Zealand has briefed its senior managers and staff on the company's programme to reorganise the airline following its separation from Ansett [Airways] and the decisions on recapitalising the company. The immediate need is to bring the organisation back to the same or smaller size that it was prior to our integration with Ansett.... The company must also be trimmed to cope with the impact of growing competition....
   [What competition? - they just swallowed Ansett!]
   ...and the reduced international travel demand that has followed the terrorist attacks in the United States.
   As we have already announced, this amounts to lowering our employee costs by the equivalent of 800 full-time employees. This can be done through a combination of steps - such as not replacing employees who leave, reducing the amount of overtime worked, reducing working hours to guaranteed minimum levels, employees taking accumulated leave, and by redundancies [i.e., layoffs].
   [There are a number of good points here -
   • Layoffs are placed last, as almost a last resort.
   • The company is dealing with full-time employee equivalents in terms of costs, meaning they're thinking in terms of costs per manhour, instead of costs per employee with the whole worktime variable ignored.
   • The company is going to try to establish a minimum level of working hours, similar to Lincoln Electric's minimum at three-quarters "full time," i.e., 30 hours a week - though in a prolonged demand-and-revenue crunch, such minimums are, of course, impossible to maintain.]
   The Company's managers will now enter into discussions with unions and employees on how this cost reduction will be achieved....
   MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
   Change will start at the top....
   [Always a good strategy for leadership, and for lack of which in the French 35-hour workweek, the French economy is hurting. Bringing the French government in last along with small businesses is sending the entirely the wrong message = that the transition is difficult, not easy.]
   The proposed new structure will...involve a smaller number of larger units - reduced from 11 to 7.... It is intended to have the new management structure in place within a period of 12 weeks.
   J. Blair
   General Counsel & Company Secretary

2. [There are plenty of odd reasons for cutting working hours. Here's one now -]
   Quake hits Russia's Lake Baikal area, no injuries, Reuters 05:39 10-10-01 via AOLNews.
   A powerful earthquake registering 7.3 on the Richter scale struck the sparsely populated area around Lake Baikal in Russia's eastern Siberia region on Wednesday, but no injuries or damage were reported.... Itar-Tass news agency said some residents or Irkutsk, the largest town in the region where the quake registered 4.5, had left their homes and a number of schools and offices were operating on reduced hours. The region is subject to frequent seismic activity. Up to 2,000 seismic movements are recorded each year in the area..\..
   Russian news agencies, quoting Siberian seismologist Kirill Levy, said the epicentre lay in the centre of the lake, which holds one-fifth of the world's fresh water. It is also the deepest lake in the world at more than 1.5 km (0.9 miles)....

• The New York Times Company named one of the best companies for working mothers, Business Wire BW2266 OCT 09,2001 9:28 EASTERN via AOLNews.
  ...by Working Mother magazine for the second consecutive year.... Some work-life benefits at The New York Times Co. are companywide while others vary by business unit. Examples of work-life balance programs include: ...
  • Flexible work options: Includes flextime, shortened or compressed work weeks, job-sharing and telecommuting. Many areas of the Company have flexible work arrangements, including The New York Times newspaper, where 36% of the employees who responded to a recent survey said they have some form of a flexible or non-traditional schedule....

• Oneida cut[s] 65 jobs, trims manufacturing work week, Reuters 17:10 10-08-01 via AOLNews.
  Flatware and cutlery maker Oneida Ltd. {OCQ.N} on Monday said it will cut 65 jobs and trim the workweek at its main flatware plant to four days from five, saying a drop in business from food service companies, following the Sept. 11 attacks, has cut into its business.... About 500 workers at the company's Sherrill, NY, flatware plant will be affected by the reduced workweek, which will begin Friday, Oneida said.
  [Guess that means the first fifth-day-off will be this Friday, so in plainer English, the reduced workweek will begin this week.]
  The company plans to keep the four-day workweek until Nov. 23, at which time it will review its product order volume to determine if further actions are necessary..\..
  The Oneida, NY-based firm, the world's largest maker of stainless steel and silver-plated flatware for the consumer and food service industries, said the job cuts will be in non-manufacturing operations. The company employs about 4,300 people.
  [So the reduced workweek will affect 500/4300= 11.6% of its employees and the jobcuts will only affect 65/4300= 1.5%.]
  Oneida's food service tableware unit has in particular been hit hard due to the negative impact the attacks have had on the airline, restaurant and hotel industries, the company said. Some airlines are eliminating food service altogether on many flights in an effort to cut costs.... The company said its consumer unit has also been affected by reduced traffic at retail stores that sell Oneida products....

• Elegant hotel tightens its classy belt - Carlyle's business hit hard by disaster, but loyal staff rallies, by Glenn Collins, NYT, A15.
  The most demanding of guests would find it difficult to notice the strange disquiet these days at the Carlyle Hotel. But it is there.
  More than three weeks after the unthinkable event, that soigné preserve of presidents, prime ministers and popular legends is outwardly unscathed. The polished Belgian marble floor in the lobby is glossier than ever. Ronald Hector still welcomes the guests at the reception desk - and yes, there are guests - with his customary aplomb. John Neary still accommodates quirky limousine requests behind the concierge counter. And John Loizos delivers room-service requests almost before they can be ordered.
  But a deeper inventory shows the wounds.... The elegant Cafe Carlyle has been shuttered and cabaret has been stilled until Bobby Short, the hotel's sophisticated saloon singer, return Oct. 16 to sing a few songs..\..
  Hotel occupancy, which dropped perilously to 30%, is only now rebounding. In place of layoffs, the staff of 404 - many of whom have worked there for decades - have volunteered to save one another's jobs by working four-day weeks....

• Chilean miners see costs rising with labor reform, by Louise Egan, Reuters 15:57 10-05-01 via AOLNews.
  SANTIAGO...- Chilean copper mines, which produce 30% of the world's supply of the metal, will suffer higher costs as a result of a new labor law that will go into effect in December, an industry leader said on Friday.
  [This is obviously a guy who thinks that employee compensation is "costs" but executive compensation is just great.]
  Ending a six-year debate, Congress last month approved sweeping reforms to the country's 1987 labor code, introduced under former dictator Augusto Pinochet. The change that is expected to hurt the mining sector, where unions are strongest, is one that regulates working schedules....
  [And what is this terrible change, you ask? To find out, we have to jump from the third paragraph all the way down to the second-last of this 16-paragraph article -]
  In terms of work schedules, the law reduces the work week to 45 hours from 48 hours starting in 2005 and regulates part-time work, overtime and telecommuting for the first time.
  [Whoa, radical! A 45-hour workweek! Welcome to America's workweek level in the 1920s. The article doesn't say whether this change involves switching from six 8-hour days to five 9-hour days.]
  To enforce the law, the government plans to hire an extra 300 labor inspectors, mandated to investigate labor disputes, issue rulings and impose fines..\..
  [100 miners at 45 hrs/wk will put in "only" 4500 workhours. At 48 hrs/wk they would have put in 4800 and, asssuming there's no productivity bump from being more rested, they'll now have 300 workhours to make up to maintain previous productivity, by hiring 300/45= 6.67, say 7, new miners. So that's an addition to the workforce of 6.67/100= 6.67%. So thanks to the mining industry, Chile is going to be beefing up its consumer base, and its domestic demand, from two sources, 6.67% more miners off the unemployment line and 300 new labor-inspector jobs. Doesn't sound like "suffering higher costs" from here. Sounds more like centrifuging some unspendably concentrated income and enjoying more robust consumer markets. But just listen to the belly-aching, reminiscent of the squeals from the top brackets prior to France's 35-hour workweek and indeed, prior to every reduction in the workweek in history, however high it started -]
  Chile's business leaders have opposed the labor reforms, saying they give too much power to state labor inspectors and raise labor costs, discouraging hiring at a time when unemployment is running high at 9.7%..\..
  [Funny how any power to anybody else is "giving them too much power." Funny how business "leaders" so easily convince themselves that sharing the work a little bit will mean fewer workers instead of more. How hard they try to keep funneling into their own unspendably swollen pockets the same or more income. What slabs of pork they are. Rancid, unfortunately.]
  Because Chilean copper mines are located in remote desert and mountain regions, companies have arranged low-cost work schedules that avoid busing employees over long distances between their homes and mine sites every day. Employees alternate between several days on site followed by several days off, a system that falls outside the bounds of the new law.
  [To extract 48 hours a week, you'd have to have more than "several" days at the mine sites - unless you were working them 20-24 hours a day like the intern slave labor in American teaching hospitals - and less than "several" days at their homes. Hey, why not just re-institute slavery? (Listen up, AMA!) Keep them in hovels at the mines year-round. Experiment to see how many costs you can really cut = how little you can feed them for how much work. Check out Stalin's notes on the subject. He had a lot of experience with this "research" in the Gulag. Of course, you won't have much of a domestic consumer base by the time you're finished, and you'll probably wind up cutting your own income because of it.]
  As of Dec. 1, when the controversial reforms become binding, companies will no longer have indefinite authorization for this [old] arrangement but must negotiate it with workers every four years and then get permission from the Labor Board.... The maximum period for collective work contracts is also reduced to four years in the new law..\..
  Labor Minister Ricardo Solari said the intent of the law was not to persecute corporations. "There is no additional cost to companies that do not infringe the law," he said Friday in a seminar. But..\..Diego Hernandez, president of the Mining Council...disagreed. "There are a series of requirements that are introduced artificially.... We are going to be in a constant process of negotiation," said Hernandez....
  [Funny when the Mining Council introduces something, it's being introduced "naturally," but when the unions or the Labor Ministry introduces something, it's being introduced "artificially."]
  Hernandez said he did not fear that broadened collective bargaining powers given unions by the reform would hurt the minining industry, in which about 66% of workers are unionized compared with 10% in the non-mining labor force....
  [So apparently he doesn't fear broadened collective bargaining powers for unions as long as they don't result in any changes. What a nearsighted moron.]

• Vicor cuts to 32-hour workweek, 5 Oct 2001 00:12 email from RadioTony.
  ...High tech company Vicor, based in Andover, Mass., has cut the hours of employees from 40 to 32 to avoid layoffs....
  [This actually showed up in the Globe five days later in vague terms -]
  Etc. - Vicor Corp., Globe staff and wire services via 10/10/2001 Boston Globe, D7.
  ...of Andover, which makes power converters for electronics...will cut pay of senior staff by 10% and employees' hours...to save money.
  [It also made Boston's other daily -]
  Vicor cuts, but not jobs, Bloomberg via 10/10/2001 Boston Herald via RadioTony.
  Vicor Corp. of Andover, which makes power converters, said it will reduce employee work schedules and cut pay of its senior staff by 10% to save money. The moves won't involve job cuts, the company said yesterday.

1. DaimlerChrysler plans to idle 5 plants, AP via NYT, C7.
   ...for part of this month because of sluggish auto sales, company officials said [yester]day. About 15,000 employees will be affected, a DaimlerChrysler spokesman, Trevor Hale, said. The temporary shutdowns will result in 26,000 vehicles being taken out of production, he said.
   [By the way, it should be clear to Greens, environmentalists and ecologists from stories like these that timesizing, for all its talk about maintaining spending and consumption, is nevertheless the royal road to reduced-consumption-without-economic-collapse.]
   The automaker on Tuesday reported a 28% drop in sales last month as compared with September 2000.
   • Two assembly plants in Windsor, Ont., are being shut down this week. Windsor Assembly builds minivans and the Pilette plant assembles Ram Van Wagons.
   • The St. Louis South assembly plant in Fenton, Mo., will shut down during the week of Oct. 8. It also builds minivans.
   • During the week of Oct. 15, the Jefferson North plant in Detroit, which builds the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and a plant in Newark, Del., which builds the Dodge Durango, as well as the Pilette plant in Windsor, will be idled.
   • The Pilette plant will also be closed during the week of Oct. 22.
   Mr. Hale said the decision to idle the plants came as a direct result of the disappointing September sales figures and were necessary to balance inventory with demand....

2. Chip makers [furlough] jobs in Japan, AP via NYT, C4.
   Two major Japanese electronics makers said they would idle semiconductor plants amid a downturn in global demand that was expected to worsen because of the terrorist attacks in the United States.
   1. Fujitsu will shut three chip plants for five days this month, affecting 5,000 workers.
   2. NEC is shutting down some lines at a plant in southwestern Japan for six days, affecting 1,000 workers. Three nearby chip plants will be closed for four days, affecting 1,700 people, NEC said.
   [Again, timesizing, not downsizing on the basis of a reduced work-month.]

3. Quick fixes to aid an ailing economy, 3rd letter to editor under this headline is by Judy Horning of Los Angeles, NYT, A26.
   Re "Waiting for economic answers" (editorial, Oct. 2): All employers in the country should give one week of extra paid vacation to their employees for use between now and the end of the year. This could have two powerful results.
   1. It would help the economy by getting people on planes, into hotels and spending money on recreation.
   2. And it would help people to experience the restorative effects of vacation as they come together to talk, play, relax and feel more normal.

4. ["good, but"]
   All seek better work balance, by Paul Robinson, workplace editor of The Age news?paper of Melbourne Australia 3 Oct 2001 via *theage.com via Eugene Coyle via Shorter WorkTime e-list.
   [This article is spun fairly positive. The original starts with the statement that "managers and employees are prepared to take pay cuts to win shorter working hours for a better family life, according to a new corporate study." But later it says only 30% would do that. So, a rather misleading start. Let's disassemble this article, disentangle the survey part and the case study part, subtract the rather strained attempt to see both through rose-colored glasses, put it all back together without re-entangling it, and see what it actually says -]
   ...A new corporate...survey, called the Leadership, Employment and Direction project 2001..\..conducted by Quantum Market Research, of 400 companies across Australia [and] based on interviews with 2300 executives, managers and employees...showed that
   • 83% of executives, 70% of managers and 22% of [non-management] workers were all working more than 46 hours a week,
   • workers at all levels wanted a better balance between work and family life...and
   • 70% believed productivity would be unaffected or improved by shorter hours....
   Commissioned by Leadership Management Australia, the survey...found growing disillusionment with management's failure to listen to staff and [in an apparent despair response,] a growing selfishness and preoccupation with pay rises among employees. \Nevertheless\ more than 30% \of\ workers at all levels...said they would take a pay cut for a 35-hour week....
   [Eugene, when you analyze it, the results of this survey are not that good. Australians seem to be in the same pathetic state of bad management, brooding selfish workoholism, and wishful thinking that Americans are caught in. And the article intersperses and confuses the survey results with the rather unremarkable case study of one executive -]
   Dismissing suggestions of a pay cut, the managing director of Blackburn Motor Body and the Bencar Group, Bruce Bennett, said yesterday he had cut his working hours from the days when he was developing the business. While he now worked between 40 and 50 hours a week "depending on projects", Mr Bennett once worked up to 80 hours a week at the expense of time with his family. "I do try and keep a lid on it," he said. "Most of my children have grown up now. I guess in my early days I wasn't at home as much as I would have liked, but when you are growing a business it's hard.... Working long hours in your own business is a choice. Having your own business is forced overtime."...
   Mr. Bennett said his body shops employed 30 people and Bencar more than 190 employees. Most worked a 38-hour week plus overtime.... "We haven't added the 35-hr week. It hasn't come up and we'd consider it if it did. But our business operates on solid labor - the amount of hours we book out. A 35-hr week could mean more employees but we would need to improve on productivity."... Mr. Bennett said he had never contemplated a pay cut for working less....
   Mr. Bennett said it was imperative that businesses invested in and looked after their staff. "We've demonstrated time and again that when we look after and provide training for our people, productivity goes up, and when we stop training, productivity goes down. In financial terms when we invest in our people, our return is increased by 20 per cent," he said....

• Wyndham International hotel chain will lay off 1,600 employees, Reuters via NYT, C4.
  ...An operator or owner of about 240 upscale hotels \is\ laying off or furloughing...about 5% of its work force of about 28,000, because of an industrywide slowdown.
  [Can't count these as timesizing furloughs unless there's a definite duration.]
  Wyndham...hope[s] to bring some of those workers back on the payroll as demand increase[s]. The company said 20% of its 27,000 employees who work at hotels were working reduced hours until occupancies rise....
  [Now that's a timesizing - cutting worktime instead of cutting employees (and markets).]

1. [32-hour workweek implemented by management in USA to avoid layoffs -]
   Imperial Palace will not currently lay off employees, PRNewswire 10/01/01 15:45 EDT via AOLNews.
   LAS VEGAS...- Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino, one of Nevada's largest private employers, will not currently lay off any employees, according to General Manager Ed Crispell. "We are, as an alternative, temporarily reducing our hourly work force department-wide to four days per week. When Las Vegas' travel and leisure market improves, Imperial Palace will restore the 40-hour work week," Crispell said....
   "We have an employment family and do not want anyone to be un[due]ly economically affected by recent tragedies, which have resulted in about 10,000 persons losing jobs so far all along the 'Strip.' The 32-hour-week allows Imperial Palace employees to keep both their jobs and benefits."...
   [God, we love these people. To hell with the Luxor and all its Egyptological allure. We'll stay at the Imperial Palace in future!]
   Because of the national crisis and accompanying low occupancy levels, Imperial Palace will, instead of employee lay-offs, concentrate on special offerings to increase occupancy levels. "We will take a positive, pro-active approach both with individual travelers and our partners in the tour and travel trade," [Crispell] stated. "We will work closely with the...Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority [LVVCA]..\..and other strategic alliances to continue to present Las Vegas as the number-one tourist destination in the world"..\..
   Imperial Palace, the second-largest sole proprietor hotel in the world, employs about 2,500 full and part-time employees and has received numerous state and national awards, including a presidential citation for its employment practices. "Imperial Palace corporation is 25 years old this year," Crispell commented, "and we have many managers and employees who have been on site even 30-plus years."... Crispell is himself a 20-year employee of the center-Strip casino and has been on the Board of Directors of the LVVCA for six years. Imperial Palace is owned by industry pioneer Ralph Engelstad, and his major concern now is for the Imperial Palace employment family to be taken care of, Crispell concluded..\..
   [Clearly this is a company that values its employees and has a long-term perspective, unlike much of the self-destructive crap that passes for capitalist management practice and strategy in our corporations and business schools. Bonus -]
   Approximately 13% of the Imperial Palace work force is disabled. In 1991, the hotel was honored as the Employer of the Year by the President's Council on Persons with Disabilities....

2. [32-hour workweek proposed by union in Canada to avoid layoffs and agreed to by management but not yet by government -]
   Air Canada pleads for 'survival' - Airline's crucial week: New proposal would have employment insurance cover 20% of labour costs, by Sandra Rubin with Ian Jack and Luiza Chwialkowska, National Post (Canada) Oct.1 2001 and The Canadian Press via *Timework's Tom Walker via Shorter Worktime e-list.
   Air Canada says it is "engaged in an unprecedented struggle for its survival" as it emerged [that] the airline's revenues have dropped 60% since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Air Canada faces a critical week as it tries to negotiate a job-cutting deal with its largest unions while waiting for the federal Cabinet to approve an aid package that would help the dominant carrier deal with its problems....
   In a document filed with the Canadian Industrial Labour Relations Board that was released last night, Air Canada said: "The conditions of business travel and work have been fundamentally altered.... Air Canada does not have the luxury of time."
   During talks yesterday with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers [IAM] - its largest union - the airline agreed that a tentative four-day-workweek deal be presented to the government that would effectively transfer part of Air Canada's payroll to taxpayers by putting 15,000 machinists, mechanics, baggage handlers and cabin cleaners on Employment Insurance [EI] one day a week. The arrangement, which the union says could avert roughly 1,250 layoffs, requires federal government approval.
   "The employer said to us they must reduce overall costs by 20%," said Dave Ritchie, Canadian general vice-president of the machinists' union. "If you take out one day's pay that is a 20% savings. So really, we have accomplished what they needed."
   Mr. Ritchie said the idea is to offer the union members - who are spread throughout the airports where they work - special training in security matters one day a week. He added that Air Canada has agreed to postpone issuing layoff notices to IAM members until Wednesday to see whether Jane Stewart, the Minister of Human Resources Development [Commission?, "HRDC"], supports the plan.... Mr. Ritchie said Air Canada and the unions will meet with Ms. Stewart's deputy minister today to lay the groundwork to pitch the proposal.... HRDC is expected to be cautious about granting Air Canada employees special treatment because of worry that thousands of Canadian workers who have been laid off, including those at the General Motors plant in Ste-Therese, Que., will demand equal treatment, government and industry sources say..\..
   BR> [Follow-up - an email from Timework's Tom Walker dated 3 Oct 2001 16:27 via SWT elist stated, "The Hon. Jane Stewart has advised the unions in the airline industry that she will accept the proposal, endorsed by the CAW, for a work-sharing program. Such a program combines a shorter work week with a monetary top-up from employment insurance benefits." There's actually a whole book on this approach - Fred Best's Reducing Workweeks to Prevent Layoffs - The Economic and Social Impacts of Unemployment Insurance-Supported Work Sharing (Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1988).]
   The airline had said it needed to issue layoff notices immediately in light of the severe downturn the industry has suffered since the terrorist attacks..\.. Airline executives and union leaders representing flight attendants met late last night in an attempt to avoid having to lay off almost a quarter of the airline's 8,000 flight attendants.... The carrier announced a further 5,000 job cuts last week on top of 4,000 announced in August..\..
   David Collenette, the Minister of Transport, confirmed some Cabinet ministers have expressed the view that the airline be restored to its former status as a Crown corporation [i.e., renationalize it] while others would "like us to take a piece of it and, say, have members on the board."... Mr. Collenette said he felt, however, that [the] Cabinet in general would prefer a private-sector solution.... Mr. Collenette strongly rejected suggestions that the federal government bears some responsibility for the carrier's ongoing financial distress because of conditions on service and staffing levels imposed as part of its takeover of Canadian Airlines less than two years ago....
   [The two big questions here are: #1, How far should taxpayers go in bailing out wealthy CEOs from their short-sighted and self-destructive - in a word, stupid - takeover decisions? And #2, in the event of a bailout, are wealthy top executives going to scoop up taxpayers' money much like Third World poohbahs grabbing up "foreign aid," or are they in any sense going to be required to share the pain (if anything at that income/wealth level can seriously be regarded as deprivation)? Best outcome? Put the entire nation on flexible adjustment of the workweek. Regulate the rate of change in the workweek by public referendum, or half an hour a month if no time or money for referendums. Share the pain as widely as possible and you won't feel it. "Sharing the burden lightens the load." In short, adapt the five-phased Timesizing program to the crisis.]

3. [32-hour workweek proposed by management in Brazil, "or else!" -]
   Volkswagen Brazil may fire 4,000 workers - report, Reuters 09:10 10-01-01 via AOLNews.
   [This story is the reverse of the 9/30 story (below) from Brazil. There the employees wanted hours cuts instead of jobcuts or else they'd strike. Here the employer wants the employees to accept hours cuts or else they'll do jobcuts. Any way we could just switch management here?]
   RIO DE JANEIRO...- The Brazilian unit of German vehicle maker Volkswagen AG could fire up to 4,000 employees at its two plants due to a fall in car sales, a Brazilian paper said on Monday. O Valor Economico financial daily quoted Herbert Demel, head of Volkswagen Brasil - the company's leading automaker in terms of sales [and] the biggest private earner in Brazil with revenues of $5.74B..\.. - as saying the layoffs would occur if workers did not accept a deal that calls for a shorter four-day working week with a pay cut.... Demel said last month's overall vehicle sales in Brazil totaled just around 100,000 units, a 30% fall from August levels, due to an economic slowdown, rising interest rates and the réal currency's sharp fall against the dollar, according to the paper.... Economic problem[s] this year had curbed Brazilians' appetite for new cars and other big-ticket items even before the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. soil worsened the outlook for the global economy..\..
   The Brazilian units of...Volkswagen \and\ General Motors Corp. [as well] last month initiated temporary production stoppages to cut costs and slow output. Volkswagen put in place a voluntary redundancy program throughout October, encouraging workers at a plant in Sao Paulo state to give up their jobs....
   Italy's Fiat SpA resorted to a one-week virtual shutdown of a plant in Minas Gerais state....
   [See 9/29,#3 below for news about Fiat timesizing in Italy.]
   Last year and in the first half of 2001..\..Brazil's auto industry started recovering from a slump which followed the 1998 Russian financial crisis and 1999 local currency...devaluation...but a new rise in interest rates has reversed the [recovery].

4. [shorter work-month in France -]
   Renault to shut plants temporarily amid uncertain mkt, Reuters 08:09 10-01-01 via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- Automaker Renault SA said on Monday that it would shut down production temporarily at its largest French factories for four days as the outlook for Europe's car market becomes increasingly murky. The cutbacks would freeze output at Douai and Flins - where it makes the Megane Scenic minivan and Clio and Twingo small cars - for four days from October 29 to November 2, a spokeswoman told Reuters.
   At Sandouville, where it makes the larger Laguna, and the light commercial vehicle factories of Maubeuge and Batilly, output would be halted for one day, November 2, she said....
   Workers at the affected plants would take the time off as holiday due to them under the 35-hour working week law and would not be laid off temporarily [i.e, furloughed], the Renault spokeswoman said.
   [Here's why France is the most recession-resistant economy in the world. Not only is one of their big automakers using worktime reduction to avoid layoffs (indefinite) but also to avoid furloughs (temporary)! These people are starting to "get" the necessity of manipulating worktime, not people, if we want to have any markets left at all.]
   "We have entered an uncertain period," she said. "We have not noticed a large change in orders...but we are using the flexibility allowed us under the 35-hour week law to avoid an increase in stocks [i.e., inventory]."
   Newspaper Le Monde reported on Monday, citing no sources, that Renault was planning to shut Douai and Flins in France and Palencia and Valladolid in Spain for as many as three weeks before the end of the year. [Doncha love all these wonderful European place names?!] Sandouville and Romarantin in France could be closed for "several days" at the end of the year, the paper said. "We have no clear indication of the current evolution of the market," Le Monde cited Chairman Louis Schweitzer as saying in a statement to union representatives. [Any relation to Albert?] "The international context risks leading us into prolonged uncertainty. Building up excessive stocks, which would penalize us if there is a sudden change, is out of the question"..\..
   Even before the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Renault had been suffering from severe economic downturns in its key overseas markets of Argentina and Turkey. But at home, Renault has been more a victim of its own product cycle than [of] uncertainty in the wider market. Demand for the Megane Scenic, Clio and Twingo - Renault's most popular models - has waned as they come up for replacement over the next two years. Figures released today by carmaker committee CCFA showed that French new car registrations rose by 2% in September, while Renault's own domestic sales fell 1.6%.... Late last month..\..shares in Renault were down [to their] lowest level since January 1998....

5. [shorter hours in Hawaii -]
   How bad did attacks affect Hawaii?, AP-NY-10-01-01 0607EDT via AOLNews.
   HONOLULU - When he say the horrifying images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Vani Olie knew right away that life would change even here, 5,000 miles away. He was right.
   The...tour bus mechanic is among thousands of Hawaii residents who have lost their jobs or had their work hours reduced since the attacks, a result of a slowdown in air travel that has dealt the state's tourism industry its worst blow ever....
   [Better reduced work hours than no work.]