Wyeth laying off 13 in Pearl River
-
- March
- 26
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. plans to lay off 13 unionized workers in the packaging department at its Pearl River plant, a company spokesman confirmed today.
The unionized jobs are being eliminated to align the size of the work force with the company’s production needs, Grace Ann Arnold said. The demand for products produced in Pearl River has dropped, she said.
She stressed that the cuts have nothing to do with the company’s pending purchase by Pfizer Inc. Pfizer and Wyeth announced in January that Pfizer would buy Wyeth for $68 billion.
Pfizer has said that it will close factories but has not identified which ones.
Kevin Puglia, the president of Local 143C of the International Chemical Workers Union, said workers are on edge about the purchase.
“There’s certainly the anticipation of stress in this place,” he said. “Nobody’s sure what’s coming.”
The 13 workers who got the bad news this week work in the part of the Wyeth operation that packages the Centrum vitamins, he said.
Usually when the company eliminates jobs the workers are able to take other jobs that the company has left open, Puglia said. “But there’s no place for these people to land,” he said.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 10:56 am by Allan Drury.
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