The Associated Press

BOSTON (December 22, 2000 9:31 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Discount retailer Bradlees Inc. is on the verge of liquidation, which could leave thousands of workers without jobs, a published report said Friday.

The Boston Herald, citing unidentified sources, reported Friday that a consortium led by Gordon Brothers Group LLC, the Boston liquidation firm, had signed a deal Wednesday to take control of the 105 Bradlees stores and sell the inventory in going-out-of-business sales.

The sources told the newspaper the Braintree, Mass.-based company may file for bankruptcy protection soon to ensure an orderly liquidation.

A message left for a Bradlees spokesman wasn't immediately returned Friday morning. The company Web site had no announcement of any liquidation plans. The Gordon Brothers phone line in Boston was busy Friday morning.

The company reportedly has 10,000 workers.

Frank Mangiotta, a spokesman for a union that represents about 1,800 Bradlees workers at 16 New Jersey and New York stores, said, "We have not been officially informed by the company of any of their plans, so it's very difficult for us to have any comment."

Bradlees, which sells clothing and hard goods, emerged from a three-year bankruptcy in early 1999. But it ran into a slowdown in consumer spending and aggressive competition from rivals.

In a filing earlier this month with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said its cash flow might not be sufficient to comply with cash requirements in its revolving credit agreement.

The company said it was engaging in talks with lenders to avoid a default and to allow for operations to continue.

The company also said it was "considering various alternatives in dealing with its ongoing cash requirements, including strategic combinations and partial or complete liquidation."

The company, founded in 1958 in New London, Conn., has stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Sidebar: This is the umpteenth article I've read about pending layoffs (from all manner of industries). Most incredible is that there are stock analysts out there that say we've hit the bottom and stocks are a bargain and 2001 is going to be wonderful. Well, at least at this forum, we're more informed.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@altavista.com), December 23, 2000

Answers

Here is another on. Maybe we should just have a thread for layoffs.

Business: West Virginia's Weirton Steel announces layoffs

The Associated Press

WEIRTON, W.Va. (December 22, 2000 5:13 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Weirton Steel Corp., blaming its troubles on steel imports and the need to control costs, announced Friday it will lay off 1,080 hourly and management employees during Christmas week. The company also plans to lay off up to 200 hourly workers after the holiday.

"The reality, given marketplace conditions, is that decisions on operations and employment can be made only on a week-by-week basis," company President John H. Walker said in a statement. "Until Washington provides substantial relief to the import crisis, this is the way the industry has to operate."

Company officials have decided to close a mill and blast furnace until January.

Weirton Steel laid off 2,800 hourly and management employees during the Thanksgiving week. Workers were recalled after 10 days.

The company reported Thursday that it expected a fourth-quarter loss of at least $52.5 million. The loss will translate to between $1.25 and $1.35 per share. The company's shares traded at $1 Friday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, down 25 cents, or 20 percent.

Weirton Steel is the nation's eighth-largest steel producer and West Virginia's second-largest private-sector employer. It produces hot- rolled, cold-rolled, galvanized and tinplated steel products.

http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/0,1032,500292889-500464920- 503104089-0,00.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 23, 2000.

16:33 EST Friday Layoffs announced at Bausch & Lomb Sarah Fanous-Samaan Staff Writer When Bausch & Lomb Inc. announced ancitipated layoffs in October, workers at the company's Clearwater, Tampa and Sarasota facilities braced themselves for the news, but no word came.

On Dec. 15, word came. As of Feb. 9, 2001, 82 workers will be laid off at Bausch & Lomb Inc.'s manufacturing plant in Sarasota, according to the Florida 2000 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Notices.

Bausch & Lomb officials were unavailable for comment today. Their offices are closed for the Christmas holiday.

Bausch & Lomb announced in August that its sales projections would fall short for the second half of this year. By October, the company planned a restructuring that would result in layoffs, but no specifics were released. The company is consolidating its surgical, pharmaceuticals and vision care business units.

http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2000/12/18/daily28.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 23, 2000.

No wonder sales are down?

Thanks for your loyal support, have a good Holiday, see the door don't come back.

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), December 24, 2000.

U.S. Consumers Grow Wary, Factory Workers Face Layoffs

David Leonhardt New York Times Service Saturday, December 23, 2000

For much of the past two years, the Frigidaire washer-and-dryer factory in Webster City, Iowa, could barely keep up with demand. Since 1998, the work force in the squat building, close to Iowa's geographical center and just off the Boone River, had increased by about 700 people, or nearly 50 percent, and the company continued hiring new employees into early November. . Then everything seemed to come to a halt. Consumer purchases of big appliances, which had leveled off during the summer, started dropping. . In Webster City, overtime hours disappeared, employees said. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Frigidaire announced that it would lay off 130 workers almost immediately. Last week, plant managers told workers that another 28 people would lose their jobs before the end of the year. . "When you're pushing all year long, and you've got foremen riding you all year long to push things out the door, it comes as a shock," said Kim Willson, a 15-year employee who has kept her job but now works fewer hours. . During the past month, similar kinds of shocks have reverberated from factory floors to executives suites to the office of Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. As the economy has slowed sharply, the manufacturing sector has been hit hardest because consumers have grown far more reticent about buying large-purchase items like appliances, cars and personal computers. . Evidence of American buyers' hesitation emerged again Friday when the Commerce Department reported that consumer spending in November grew at its slowest rate in two years. . Many of the primary culprits - tighter credit, higher energy costs and a falling stock market - have been hampering the economy for the past year. What has changed in recent weeks, economists said, is that Americans have suddenly become more pessimistic about their job prospects in 2001, despite an unemployment rate that remains near a 30-year low. With this pessimism comes a chance that spending will fall further, requiring companies to cut excess inventories and slash their payrolls - potentially snowballing into a downward spiral. . Whirlpool, General Motors, Aetna and Gillette have announced large job cuts this month. And on Thursday, Lucent Technologies and Ford disclosed layoffs as well. The number of people who are not working as many hours as they would like - either because their overtime has declined, as Ms. Willson's did, or because they are now working only part-time - has risen sharply. Almost one-half of Americans, nearly double the level in November, now expect the jobless rate to rise next year, according to a recent University of Michigan consumer survey. . "For the first time in a long time, consumers have begun to believe a recession is possible," said Richard Curtin, the director of Michigan's surveys. In early December, consumer sentiment dropped at its sharpest rate since August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. . Retail sales fell last month, and many merchants say the holiday shopping season has been disappointing so far. . While the service sector continues to expand at a healthy pace and most economists still think a recession is unlikely next year, the roughly one-fifth of the American economy that manufactures goods is starting to move in reverse. . "I get reports every day of people seeing their orders drop sharply from the third quarter," said Jerry Jasinowski, the president of the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington. . The $37 billion appliance industry, with its reliance on consumers who are willing to spend hundreds of dollars at a time, provides a particularly telling example of how the economy has decelerated so quickly. As recently as September, shipments of home appliances, on a year-over-year basis, were rising at a double-digit pace, as factories like the one in Webster City continued to stamp out thousands of new machines a day. But in the past two months, shipments have fallen by more than 8 percent. . With companies already facing depressed overseas earnings because of the strong dollar and higher costs, the sales falloff forced the industry into painful actions. Whirlpool, the industry's largest manufacturer, said on Dec. 13 that it planned to eliminate as many as 6,300 jobs, or one-tenth of its work force. The company also lowered its profit forecast for the second time in three months, saying it would now earn about 25 percent less per share in the fourth quarter than it had thought in the summer. . The next day, Maytag, which had already lost its chief executive in November after a disappointing 15-month tenure, said it was also lowering its fourth quarter forecast for the second time. . The about-face has come with stunning speed. Between the start of 1998 and this summer, Americans increased their spending on appliances by 18 percent. . "We've had three years of very, very robust sales," said Tina Settecase, the vice president for home appliances at Sears, which sells more appliances than any other retailer. Sears' sales remained strong through November, even as the industry turned down, Ms. Settecase said. But the first two weeks of December were weak. . Partly as a result of the appliance boom, household spending on durable goods rose to its highest relative level in at least 50 years. . Appliances, cars, houses and other long-lasting items accounted for 19 percent of spending earlier this year, up from about 15 percent in 1990, according to James Paulsen, the chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management. . The spending fattened the manufacturers' bottom lines, but it also meant that lots of homeowners now own new machines in their kitchens and basements - machines that are unlikely to need replacing anytime soon. With the future looking less certain, consumers have pulled back. . "There has been a more precipitous drop than we historically see," said David Whitwam, Whirlpool's chief executive. "This is a pretty predictable industry normally." . The industry downturn has left many workers seriously worried. "I don't think people are opening their eyes and seeing what's going on," said Laura Nichols, who has worked for seven years on the assembly line in Whirlpool's plant in Clyde, Ohio. "People don't want to accept the fact that things are getting worse," Ms. Nichols said.

For Related Topics See: Americas Front Page

< < Back to Start of Article For much of the past two years, the Frigidaire washer-and-dryer factory in Webster City, Iowa, could barely keep up with demand. Since 1998, the work force in the squat building, close to Iowa's geographical center and just off the Boone River, had increased by about 700 people, or nearly 50 percent, and the company continued hiring new employees into early November. . Then everything seemed to come to a halt. Consumer purchases of big appliances, which had leveled off during the summer, started dropping. . In Webster City, overtime hours disappeared, employees said. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Frigidaire announced that it would lay off 130 workers almost immediately. Last week, plant managers told workers that another 28 people would lose their jobs before the end of the year. . "When you're pushing all year long, and you've got foremen riding you all year long to push things out the door, it comes as a shock," said Kim Willson, a 15-year employee who has kept her job but now works fewer hours. . During the past month, similar kinds of shocks have reverberated from factory floors to executives suites to the office of Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. As the economy has slowed sharply, the manufacturing sector has been hit hardest because consumers have grown far more reticent about buying large-purchase items like appliances, cars and personal computers. . Evidence of American buyers' hesitation emerged again Friday when the Commerce Department reported that consumer spending in November grew at its slowest rate in two years. . Many of the primary culprits - tighter credit, higher energy costs and a falling stock market - have been hampering the economy for the past year. What has changed in recent weeks, economists said, is that Americans have suddenly become more pessimistic about their job prospects in 2001, despite an unemployment rate that remains near a 30-year low. With this pessimism comes a chance that spending will fall further, requiring companies to cut excess inventories and slash their payrolls - potentially snowballing into a downward spiral. . Whirlpool, General Motors, Aetna and Gillette have announced large job cuts this month. And on Thursday, Lucent Technologies and Ford disclosed layoffs as well. The number of people who are not working as many hours as they would like - either because their overtime has declined, as Ms. Willson's did, or because they are now working only part-time - has risen sharply. Almost one-half of Americans, nearly double the level in November, now expect the jobless rate to rise next year, according to a recent University of Michigan consumer survey. . "For the first time in a long time, consumers have begun to believe a recession is possible," said Richard Curtin, the director of Michigan's surveys. In early December, consumer sentiment dropped at its sharpest rate since August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. . Retail sales fell last month, and many merchants say the holiday shopping season has been disappointing so far. . While the service sector continues to expand at a healthy pace and most economists still think a recession is unlikely next year, the roughly one-fifth of the American economy that manufactures goods is starting to move in reverse. . "I get reports every day of people seeing their orders drop sharply from the third quarter," said Jerry Jasinowski, the president of the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington. . The $37 billion appliance industry, with its reliance on consumers who are willing to spend hundreds of dollars at a time, provides a particularly telling example of how the economy has decelerated so quickly. As recently as September, shipments of home appliances, on a year-over-year basis, were rising at a double-digit pace, as factories like the one in Webster City continued to stamp out thousands of new machines a day. But in the past two months, shipments have fallen by more than 8 percent. . With companies already facing depressed overseas earnings because of the strong dollar and higher costs, the sales falloff forced the industry into painful actions. Whirlpool, the industry's largest manufacturer, said on Dec. 13 that it planned to eliminate as many as 6,300 jobs, or one-tenth of its work force. The company also lowered its profit forecast for the second time in three months, saying it would now earn about 25 percent less per share in the fourth quarter than it had thought in the summer. . The next day, Maytag, which had already lost its chief executive in November after a disappointing 15-month tenure, said it was also lowering its fourth quarter forecast for the second time. . The about-face has come with stunning speed. Between the start of 1998 and this summer, Americans increased their spending on appliances by 18 percent. . "We've had three years of very, very robust sales," said Tina Settecase, the vice president for home appliances at Sears, which sells more appliances than any other retailer. Sears' sales remained strong through November, even as the industry turned down, Ms. Settecase said. But the first two weeks of December were weak. . Partly as a result of the appliance boom, household spending on durable goods rose to its highest relative level in at least 50 years. . Appliances, cars, houses and other long-lasting items accounted for 19 percent of spending earlier this year, up from about 15 percent in 1990, according to James Paulsen, the chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management. . The spending fattened the manufacturers' bottom lines, but it also meant that lots of homeowners now own new machines in their kitchens and basements - machines that are unlikely to need replacing anytime soon. With the future looking less certain, consumers have pulled back. . "There has been a more precipitous drop than we historically see," said David Whitwam, Whirlpool's chief executive. "This is a pretty predictable industry normally." . The industry downturn has left many workers seriously worried. "I don't think people are opening their eyes and seeing what's going on," said Laura Nichols, who has worked for seven years on the assembly line in Whirlpool's plant in Clyde, Ohio. "People don't want to accept the fact that things are getting worse," Ms. Nichols said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/5260.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 24, 2000.

Not quite one week after the initial item in this thread, Reuters/ the NY Times reports that Bradlees is indeed declaring bankruptcy. Note the laundry list of reasons cited, including higher fuel costs (but, no mention of any back-office computer problems...):

Headline: Bankruptcy Is Sought by Bradlees

Source: REUTERS via the New York Times, 27 Dec 2000

The discount retailer Bradlees said yesterday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection after exploring several options to change its financial outlook, including a possible sale of the company.

Bradlees, which is based in Braintree, Mass., said an "orderly wind- down of operations" would allow it to maximize its value. The process is beginning this week, the company said.

Pending the bankruptcy court's approval, the company said it had reached an agreement to sell its inventory to a group led by Gordon Brothers Retail Partners of Boston. Bradlees said it expected to retain store associates through this process.

In its petition for bankruptcy protection, Bradlees cited a general economic downturn, including rising interest rates and higher gas and heating oil prices, as reasons for its financial trouble. It added other problems included new competition, unseasonable weather in the first half of 2000, and more recently, the tightening of trade credit and curtailment of inventory shipments.

Bradlees operates 105 stores and three distribution centers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Bradlees was founded in New London, Conn., in 1958. It went public in 1992 and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1999.

Shares of Bradlees were unchanged yesterday at 22 cents.

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), December 27, 2000.