Alcatel, Lucent Agree to Combine, Plan 8,800 Job Cuts

[UpInArms]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a8j19pYTtHx0&refer=us

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. agreed to combine in a $13.4 billion share swap to create the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker by sales.

<snip>

Alcatel and Lucent said they plan to eliminate about 10 percent of the combined workforce, or 8,800 jobs, to achieve savings of 1.4 billion euros ($1.7 billion) within three years. The two equipment makers, whose merger talks five years ago failed, agreed to combine after being unable to revive sales or their share prices since the technology bubble burst.

``This is not the industry it was five years ago,'' said Marc Klee, vice president and portfolio manager at American Fund Advisors Inc. in Garden City, New York. ``This is a healthy thing.''

<snip>

The acquisition may spark a wave of other mergers. Companies including Nortel Networks Corp., Tellabs Inc. and Ciena Corp. were mentioned by analysts last week as attractive candidates to combine or be bought. They're battling for the $336 billion telecom equipment market as phone companies boost spending to upgrade their networks.

<snip>

Lucent gives Alcatel customers including Cingular Wireless LLC and Verizon Wireless, the top two U.S. mobile-phone providers, and will help the French company triple its sales in the U.S.

...more at link...

"A healthy thing"?????

[AndyA]

1. More consolidation, more jobs lost, less competition

Not a good thing! The big corporations are getting a Carte Blanche rubber stamp to do as they damn well please. Why did we bother to break up AT&T in the 1980's? Only to allow the companies to continue to merge and merge and merge until it's all one company again?

[VegasWolf]

2. After the 8,000 people depart, I forsee new jobs for India. nt

[LiberalArkie]

3. It means that there are now no US telephone switch manufacturers.

It is not very healthy at all.How will US government handle security when all the equipment is made overseas and can thus be more easily tapped?

[Joanne98]

9. The Carlyle Group doesn't want the US to handle security...

They're into telecom now. They'd rather have their criminal friends in other countries do that.

[blackhorse]

4. Klee should have to endure years of ...

... being without work, so that he can reassess his view of 8,800 job cuts as a "healthy thing". People with views like his are a large part of what is wrong with the USA.

BH

On edit: corrected ungrammatical babble

[madrchsod]

5. bell labs are now history

kind`a sad in away

[WhiteTara]

6. healthy for whom? Seems

like only the people getting something for nothing thinks is a good deal. The rest are left to scrape by best they can.

[SoCalDem]

7. And so it goes..... Less competition, less choice..less jobs

and to think when MaBell ran the show, we paid $9.00 a month for a phone that never broke, and you could rest on your shoulder without permanent spinal damage, and repairs were free ..

of course we could not textmessage, interrupt everyone we know 24-7 and play games on the old phones:)

They were lethal weapons though...(ever drop one on your foot?)

[Joanne98]

8. Add the Delphi shocker.........

Getting rid of more jobs lazy Americans don't want to do anyway.....

Auto news
DELPHI SHOCKER: Plan deepens divide with its unions,

• GRAPHIC: 10,000 Michigan workers targeted

Delphi Corp. chief executive Steve Miller, who had preached the need to bring union labor costs under control, unveiled a drastic restructuring plan Friday that shook the auto industry and set the stage for a tense showdown with the UAW and Delphi's other unions.

The company, in a filing in bankruptcy court in New York, outlined plans to shed 25 of its 33 U.S. plants by January 2008 while cutting 23,000 workers -- including 10,000 in Michigan. Plants in Flint, Adrian, Coopersville, Saginaw and Orion were on the hit list.

Beyond the U.S. hourly jobs Delphi plans to cut, it also targeted another 8,500 salaried jobs worldwide.

Also Friday, Delphi asked bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain for permission to throw out its labor contracts and eliminate retiree medical and life insurance benefits. Delphi also declared that it wanted to rid itself of some unprofitable contracts with General Motors Corp., its largest customer
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060401/BUSINESS01/604010315/1014/BUSINESS

Watch the union strike and force GM in Bankruptcy. Then GM will get out of it's labor and pension agreements. All in time for the Bush Amnesty plan. Then hardworking taxpaying scabs can do the work Americans don't want to do. Sounds like a plan to me.