1,700 laid off via conference call

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



On Nov. 30, employees at Sanofi-Aventis pharmaceuticals, the world's fourth-biggest drugmaker, received an email from the company wishing them a happy Thanksgiving and telling them to check their email again at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

A.R., a Sanofi-Aventis sales representative in California who wished to remain anonymous, as her contract forbids publicly disparaging the company, said she and her coworkers each received one of the two mass emails the company sent out that Tuesday morning. Both emails contained a code, an 800-number and a call time, either 8:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. The employees who were instructed to call in at the earlier time were told they could keep their jobs, but the 1,700 employees who called in at 8:30 a.m. weren't so lucky: They were laid off by a voice on the other line that told them to stop working immediately, and had no opportunity for question or comment.

Unfortunately, A.R. found herself in the second group.

"The way they did this was so brutal and inhumane," she told HuffPost. "We were each assigned an employee number when we started working there -- an 'NM' followed by five digits -- and that's how I felt that day. Like a number, rather than a valued human being with feelings."

Sanofi-Aventis told its employees they would be paid through Dec. 31, and gave them a modest severance package. A.R., who had only been working at the company a year and a half, received 13 weeks of pay and benefits. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/rugmaker-lays-off-1700-vi_n_798442.html

[Kennah]

1. Largest case of mass rape in history

[Pisces]

15. Do not equate the loss of a job to rape. This is ignorant. I don't agree with

how these employees were fired, but you are out of line.

[sharp_stick]

2. I hear more and more stories like this

just a total lack of class on the part of management. I would love to hear about the guy that authorized this getting shitcanned the same way next week

[underpants]

4. You are kidding -right?

That guy is the toast of the week at corporate.

"Great idea Jones!!!"

[sharp_stick]

8. Oh I know

right now he's probably spending his Christmas bonus on blow and hookers. I like to think positive though and hope against hope that he gets what he deserves.

The asshole that thought this up is probably nice and happy and as usual not giving a shit about all the people that now have a shitty holiday just because of him.

[underpants]

3. Cutting costs - no reason to even hire a Clooneyesque party like in "Up in the Air"

people have no idea how corporations and organizations cut dost while still charging the same price.

I would be amazed if 60% of the research and development of druges for this operation is not paid for by us through the NIH and college studies....oh and they get to include executive pay and adverting into "R&D".

[stillwaiting]

23. Are you serious!

Do Pharma companies actually classify advertising and executive compensation as R&D? I had never heard that before and find it somewhat shocking (Although I really should expect that everything is a big scam now).

If true, that deserves a lot more exposure since Pharma touts their R&D costs so damn much.

Thanks for this info. I just need to verify it now before spreading it far and wide!!

[underpants]

24. The second link here is more complete - 55% of R&D is taxpayer funded

"Pharmaceutical companies charging skyrocketing drug prices like to sugar coat the pain by saying those prices are needed for research and development," said Ron Pollack, Families USA's executive director. "The truth is high prices are much more associated with record-breaking profits and enormous compensation for top drug company executives."

Pollack added, "Drug companies' commitments to research and development are dwarfed by those companies' expenditures for marketing, advertising, and administration."

In 2000, the pharmaceutical industry was, once again, the most profitable U.S. industry, and profit margins in the industry were nearly four times the average of Fortune 500 companies. According to the Families USA report, three companies - Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories - received twice as much in net profits than they spent on research and development. Three other companies - Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, and Allergan - received more money in net profits than they spent on research and development.

http://www.actupny.org/reports/drugcosts.html

Industry R&D risks and costs are often significantly reduced by taxpayer-funded research, which has helped launch the most medically important drugs in recent years and many of the best-selling drugs, including all of the top five sellers in one recent year surveyed (1995).

An internal National Institutes of Health (NIH) document, obtained by Public Citizen through the Freedom of Information Act, shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, taxpayer-funded scientists conducted 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the top five selling drugs in 1995. (See Section III)

The industry fought, and won, a nine-year legal battle to keep congressional investigators from the General Accounting Office from seeing the industry’s complete R&D records. (See Section IV) Congress can subpoena the records but has failed to do so. That might owe to the fact that in 1999-2000 the drug industry spent $262 million on federal lobbying, campaign contributions and ads for candidates thinly disguised as "issue" ads. (See accompanying report, "The Other Drug War: Big Pharma’s 625 Washington Lobbyists")
http://www.citizen.org/publications/publicationredirect.cfm?ID=7065

[RegieRocker]

5. Wait I'm confused didn't they just get a tax break?

How come they are laying people off????

[katnapped]

21. Boggles the mind, doesn't it

Oh, :sarcasm:

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. sad

[glinda]

7. Suspect that they outsourced to India.

[sharp_stick]

14. No they're cutting sales staff

most pharma companies are doing this in anticipation of patent losses. In no way is this meant to forgive the asshole that thought this up, he's a massive prick who deserves to be shot with a ball of his own shit just for thinking this was a good idea.

[glinda]

18. I think it is a mean gesture out of spite because more generics are now allowed. I see many

layoffs that seem more out of anger than anything.

[redirish28]

9. Is this the way the future going to be? Such a sick way to do things like the

workers where a piece of trash...:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[Gin]

11. Pharma sales reps make good money with very good perks & benefits.

I know it will hurt but the ride was a nice one.

[GoCubsGo]

10. My former co-workers and I found out from our local newspaper

Our former employer faxed a lay-off list to out office at 5:30 on a Friday afternoon--after most people went home. They also let the local papers know they were cutting XX positions. The papers published that information Saturday morning. Some of us knew what was coming, but several people got a nice surprise on Monday morning. I know how those poor that used to work for Sanofi-Aventis people feel. At least they got a severance package. We had to threaten a lawsuit to get our unused leave paid to us, let alone getting some sort of severance.

[SugarShack]

12. It's as bad as the movie "Up in the Air"

[myrna minx]

13. Disgusting, but the way of the future for we wage slaves. n/t

[undeterred]

16. 13 weeks of severance pay and benefits is more than a lot of people get

It may not have been handled well, but there are millions of people who have been treated worse than this.

[abelenkpe]

17. Seven years ago the company I worked for laid everyone off

two weeks before Christmas. There was no severance, no two weeks notice, nothing. They just called everyone into the screening room and announced the company was folding, it was bankrupt and we should all go home.

I didn't have any kids at the time, no debt, no real worries. Went home and called a couple other places and was hired again in three weeks working on the same show at a different studio. If that happened to me today though it would be hell with two little kids depending on me. I truly hope that those who lost their job find new work right away. This is no time to be out of work.

[Anakin Skywalker]

19. Welcome to Corporate America! Enjoy your stay!

[hobbit709]

20. "as her contract forbids publicly disparaging the company"

Three years ago when the place my wife worked for 32 years dumped her, she had to sign an agreement stating pretty much the same to get her severance pay. I looked it over, then sent a copy to my attorney and asked "Do you see my name anywhere on this?" His reply "No."
His advice was take the money and run, then do what you want. They had way too much to hide to try and get the money back.

[bluestate10]

22. The way to fight this is to start alternatives.

The nation is full of progressive medical and pharmaceutical researchers that are dying to start of progressive companies that value workers and customers as much as they value profits. Any company needs profits to stay in business.

People like me are technical and business people that work on a small local scale. But I am sure there are ethical members of DU that have the skills and ethics to organize a national scale, progressive venture capital company that will fund the startup of progressive companies, that are run by progressive, community oriented leaders. Several characteristics this person feels the venture firm and startup companies must demonstrate;

1) Aim to make a fair profit as fast as possible. No enterprise survives for long without making a profit.
Companies that do not have a primary profit motive will turn out to be a drain on the progressive capital fund.
2) Under no circumstances accept seed money from traditional investment banks, get funding via the progressive
fund and via growth of profits.
3) Hire the best people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, physical statue. Work them hard, but be
fair with benefits and pay, and pay back part of profits as bonuses.
4) Deliver a fairly priced, high quality, consistent quality product to customers. Treat suppliers with respect,
firmness, but fairness.
5) Never, ABSOLUTELY NEVER go public and allow shares to be traded on stock exchanges, doing so will enrich
investment banks and be the first step in the demise of the progressive company, it's ideas and the future of
it's employees. Leaders of progressive companies must ignore the lure of fancy cars, mansions, fancy clothes
and jewelry, side misters and/or mistresses, their mission in life is a much more worthy pursuit, running a
company that has and keeps employees, customers and suppliers at the top of it's concerns.

[rucky]

25. Stay classy, corporate America!

[sarcasmo]

26. Kick. Corporate America.