News In Brief

Hewlett-Packard, the world's No. 3 computermaker, plans to cut up to 3,000 management jobs, an announcement said. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company also plans to reduce discretionary spending and will require employees to take incremental days off. The company, which also makes printers, said revenues would decline up to 4 percent for the second quarter, falling short of analysts' expectations. In January, HP said 2,000 jobs would be cut by the end of April.

Winstar Communications Inc., sought protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code. In a related move, the New York broadband supplier also sued Lucent Technologies for $10 billion for breach of a vendor-financing agreement. Earlier this month, Winstar defaulted on $75 million worth of interest payments and laid off 2,000 employees.

The maker of Acuvue contact lenses, Johnson & Johnson, said it will pay $860 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it advised customers to throw away some of its products after one day's wear when they could have been used for up to two weeks. The suit contended that Acuvue and 1-Day Acuvue lenses are the same product and that 6 million people had spent $1.1 billion unnecessarily since 1994 on lenses because of misleading marketing.

Tellabs Inc., a leading telecommunications equipment maker, said it is cutting 550 jobs, 6 percent of its workforce, and warned that continued slowdown in customer spending would further impact earnings in the next year. Tellabs, based in Lisle, Ill., also said it will close a research and development center, eliminate salary increases, cut executive pay, and reduce plant output.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor