Business & Finance
Workers at Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., plant voted 3,103 to 1,486 against being represented by the United Auto Workers Union, the second such setback there for the UAW - and by roughly the same margin - in 12 years. The union had hoped to use Smyrna as a springboard for a renewed campaign to organize foreign-owned assembly plants amid a steady decline in its membership since 1970.
Corning Inc. said it will cut another 4,000 jobs on top of the 8,000 it eliminated earlier this year. The Corning, N.Y., company is the world's No. 1 maker of optical fiber used in telecommunications networks. It will shut down most operations at its five optical-fiber plants by late this month, but plans to increase production next year when business conditions are expected to improve.
Credit Suisse First Boston will cut 760 jobs in its investment banking division, the Financial Times reported. The layoffs, which include senior managers, will eliminate 20 percent of the company's global investment banking staff of 27,000. CFSB already has shed 3,100 workers following its merger last year with Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette.
Regulators will shut down Reliance Insurance after abandoning attempts to reorganize the Philadelphia company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Reliance faces a deficit of more than $1 billion and losses of up to $4 million a day. Once among the industry's largest writers of property/casualty policies, the company has had to take a back seat as reinsurers focus instead on carriers that had policies covering damage in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In another day of major airline/aircraft industry developments:
General Electric's engine subsidiary said it will lay off 4,000 workers by early next year.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced up to 2,500 layoffs and said it will seek "substantial" cuts in the pay and working hours of at least 12,000 other employees.
Swissair resumed service, but with only 50 flights instead of the 486 that were scheduled before its financial crisis led to a two-day shutdown earlier this week.
Air New Zealand was renationalized by the Wellington government, 12 years after being sold to private investors. But questions remained about whether the carrier is liable for $270 million in salaries and bonuses for 16,000 employees who lost jobs when its Ansett subsidiary collapsed last month.