NO LOVE AT BOSTON SCIENTIFIC (07/21/23)

JULY 21, 2023 — CLOSURURE IN FREMONT, CALIFORNIA 52 LAYOFFS

The company has announced its plans to close its Fremont, California facility on August 11, 2023, and work on the Wolf Thrombectomy platform to a company facility in Minnesota. 52 employees will be impacted by the closure.

According to a company statement, “Transferring work among our facilities helps us align our products, capabilities, technologies, and resources to best support our business strategies, meet market demands, and improve our operating performance while delivering value, along with life-changing medical solutions, to our customers and their patients.”

MARCH 2, 2023 — 120 LAYOFFS IN HOUSTON, TEXAS

The company has filed to lay off 120 people at the Houston, Texas, site it acquired in 2021 through its $925 million takeover of Preventice Solutions.

The post-acquisition move was driven by the company’s decision to transfer some work to the company’s Arden Hills, Minnesota facility.

According to a spokesperson, “Transferring work among our facilities helps us align our products, capabilities, technologies, and resources to support our business strategies.”

DECEMBER 15, 2021 — PLANT IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA CLOSURE WITH 170 LAYOFFS

The company has announced that it will permanently close its Baytech manufacturing facility in San Jose, California impacting 170 employees commencing January 30, 2022.

According to a company spokesperson, “To improve our operating performance and meet anticipated market demands, we continuously assess the way we are structured and resourced to deliver value to patients and our customers.

As part of a restructuring plan announced in 2018, we are transferring the work currently performed at our Baytech site in San Jose, California, to other Boston Scientific sites. Transferring work among our facilities helps us align our products, capabilities, technologies, and resources to support our business strategies.

Our priority is the employees who have been impacted by the decision, and they have been given adequate notification and are being offered transition assistance.”

NOVEMBER 18, 2020 — 106 EMPLOYEES IN MAPLE GROVE, MINNESOTA

According to a company spokesperson, “Boston Scientific is voluntarily recalling its LOTUS Edge Aortic Valve System from the market and retiring the platform. As a result, the operational unit associated with this system will be closed and the employees will be laid off.

"While we have been pleased with the benefits the LOTUS Edge valve has provided to patients, we have been increasingly challenged by the intricacies of the delivery system required to allow physicians to fully reposition and recapture the valve.

"The complexity of the delivery system, manufacturing challenges, the continued need for further technical enhancements, and current market adoption rates led us to the difficult decision to stop investing in the Lotus Edge platform."

MARCH 29, 2018 — Original post…

Boston Scientific, following through on their November 2017 WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) filing with the State of California, 289 employees were laid off from Boston Scientific’s largest site on the West Coast and located in the high-desert area of Valencia, California.

Facility operations involving the company’s Implantable Pulse Generators (known as neuromodulators and used to stimulate the spinal cord to eliminate neuropathic pain in patients) are being redistributed to other facilities in Minnesota, Puerto Rico and Ireland.

The company based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, continues to face intense competition in the medical space as well as the usual healthcare cost containment pressures, government payment and delivery system reforms, changes in private payer policies, and marketplace consolidations could decrease the demand for our products, the prices which customers are willing to pay for those products and/or the number of procedures performed in addition to the customary legal challenges for adverse outcomes in critical care devices.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

NO LOVE AT CARRIER

Why should we be surprised when the business case for outsourcing and relocation trumps (pun intended) political rhetoric and promises. So it should come as no surprise that the Carrier Corporation is continuing to relocate business activities from Indianapolis, Indiana to Mexico in spite of President Trump’s promise to save employees. Carrier has announced that 215 employees are being laid off with another remaining 730 employee’s jobs may be in future jeopardy. Management announced that a portion of any savings would be invested in modernization and automation, both of which are associated with additional job losses. United Technologies, Carrier’s parent is also laying off another 700 employees in the same region. 

Are you asking yourself, Am I Next?

NO LOVE AT DEMATIC (GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN)

After claiming they have satisfied the initial terms and conditions of a job-related Michigan tax break, Dematic, a makers of automated machinery for industrial applications, appears to be continuing their planned layoffs and a transition to a production facility based in Monterrey, Mexico. In a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice) filed with the State of Michigan, the company announced its intentions to lay off another 60 production workers, most in manufacturing and many represented by the United Auto Workers union, in the firsts months of 2018. 

At risk are additional number of workers that might be affected by the transition as Dematic has told the union that their Grand Rapids manufacturing facility will be substantially closed by mid-2018 and completely shut down by the end of 2018. 

As we have seen before, problems can arise from union contracts which do not well represent the realities between loss of business, increasing competition, global logistics, wages, benefits, and the necessity of increasing production while lowering costs. Looking at the type of workers scheduled for layoff, (welders, mechanics, electronics technicians, machine operators) is consistent with the decline in manufacturing jobs within the United States. 

Safe for the time being are the administrative and engineering staff in similarly located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. According to a company spokesperson, “This move will help to further increase our global competitiveness and secure highly-skilled engineering jobs based in Grand Rapids.” 

To be noted, this is the type of industrial operation that changes ownership as the global poohbahs play Monopoly with real companies and real money. According to UAW local President Scott Wahlfeldt, “in 1980, the company was acquired by Lear Siegler Corporation and exchanged hands four times until 2006, when it was acquired by Triton, a private equity firm from Siemens. It was sold to KION, a German maker of forklift trucks and automated material handling equipment for $2.1 billion in 2016. 

Translation: Welcome to Dematic Mexico ...

"Dematic designs, develops and delivers solutions that optimize your supply chain, improve productivity and increase the performance of your system in your manufacturing area and within the four walls of your warehouse or distribution center, in addition to providing support and technical assistance throughout the life cycle of its logistics solutions."

Are you asking yourself, Am I Next?