Thought you all could use a short break for an irreverent article (below).
>
>HONEYWELL TO CUT WORKFORCE 120 PERCENT
>
>NEW YORK, N.Y. (SatireWire.com) - Honeywell will reduce its workforce by
an
>unprecedented 120 percent by the end of 2001, believed to be the first
time
>a major corporation has laid off more employees than it actually has.
>
>Honeywell stock soared more than 12 points on the news. The reduction
>decision, announced Wednesday, came after a year-long internal review of
>cost-cutting procedures, said Honeywell Chairman and CEO Mike Bonsignore.
>The initial report concluded the company would save $1.2 billion by
>eliminating 20 percent of its 108,000 employees.
>
> >From there, said Mike, "it didn't take a genius to figure out that if we
>cut 40 percent of our workforce, we'd save $2.4 billion, and if we cut 100
>percent of our workforce, we'd save $6 billion. But then we thought, why
>stop there? Let's cut another 20 percent and save $7 billion.
>
>"We believe in increasing shareholder value, and we believe that by
>decreasing expenditures, we enhance our competitive cost position and our
>bottom line," he added. Honeywell plans to achieve the 100 percent
>internal reduction through layoffs, attrition and early retirement
>packages. To achieve the 20 percent in external reductions, the company
>plans to involuntarily downsize 22,000 non-Honeywell employees who
>presently work for other companies.
>
>"We pretty much picked them out of a hat," said Mike. Among firms
Honeywell
>has picked as "External Reduction Targets," or ERTs, are Quaker Oats, AMR
>Corporation, parent of American Airlines, Lockheed, Boeing,Charles Schwab
&
>Co.& Alliant Techsystems,Inc.
>
>"Honeywell's plan presents a "win-win" for the company and ERTs," said
>Mike,"as any savings by ERTs would be passed on to Honeywell, while the
>ERTs themselves would benefit by the increase in stock price that usually
>accompanies personnel cutback announcements. We're also hoping that since,
>over the years, we've been really helpful to a lot of companies, they'll
do
>this for us kind of as a favor."
>
>Legally, pink slips sent out by Honeywell would have no standing at ERTs
>unless those companies agreed. While executives at ERTs declined to
>comment, employees at those companies said they were not inclined to
>cooperate.
>
>"This is ridiculous. I don't work for Honeywell. They can't fire me," said
>Kaili Blackburn, a flight attendant with American Airlines. "Reactions
like
>that, replied Mike, "are not very sporting."
>
>Inspiration for Honeywell's plan came from previous cutback initiatives,
>said company officials. In July of 1999, for instance, the company
>announced it would trim 18,000 jobs over two years. However, just a year
>later, Honeywell said it had already reached its quota. "We were
>quite surprised at the number of employees willing to leave Honeywell in
>such a hurry, and we decided to build on that," Mike said. Analysts
>credited Mike's short-term vision, noting that the announcement had the
>desired effect of immediately increasing Honeywell's share value. However,
the
>long-term ramifications could be detrimental, said Bear Stearns analyst
>Beldon McInty.
>
>"It's a little early to tell, but by eliminating all its employees,
>Honeywell may jeopardize its market position and could, at least
>theoretically, cease to exist," said McInty. Mike, however, urged
patience:
>"To my knowledge, this hasn't been done before, so let's just wait and see
>what happens."
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