The three affected facilities are all in New Jersey -- Roseland, Union and Lafayette.
Do go read Pharmalot -- Ed Silverman's -- story:
. . . .Meetings were held this morning with employees, although there was no specific info available on the number of people who are expected to lose their jobs. However, the layoffs will include a mix of people who work in R&D -- such as in Lafayette, where Schering-Plough Research Institute has offices -- as well as manufacturing, among other things. There is some irony here -- as one source notes, Merck is laying off some of the scientists who helped create the pipeline they so greatly coveted. . . .
Ironic, indeed.
4 comments:
Was told by our management today about the closings. The people let go from this are on top of and not a part of the ongoing consolidations of departments!
My department was told that the consolation announcements on who are being kept and who is being let go will be made in May. No indication of how many or what criteria they are using to determine who goes and who stays. As an employee of this company it almost feels as if management is purposely keeping people in suspense and turmoil on possible job losses and layoffs. Employee morale is so poor people just want them to get this over with and stop the constant reminder of that any day could be their last day of employment.
Most people will move to Union NJ and some to go to Rahway, and a select few to go to West Point PA how many and who have not been stated.
Merck bought SG for items in its current pipeline, current management of this company doesn’t’ care about SGP’s long term research, they wanted a quick fix for the lagging pipeline from peter Kim’s lack of success running MRL
Also rumor central has it that the West Pont Union committee has voted in favor for a strike. West Point union’s contract is up on May first with a possible one week extension. But negotiations are not going well and the two sides are still far apart on wages and headcount issues.
I guess you can call Roseland legacy S-P, but it's organon and wasn't the space leased, not owned? thought they already moved most of the talent out anyway. union needed to be phased out or upgraded so that doesn't come as a surprise. sell the campus to the college. It only makes sense to start consolidating campuses. no real surprise here.
Roseland isn't much of a surprise and they're moving most everybody anyway. Really wouldn't consider this a big deal. Roseland was on the verge of closing after SP bought Organon -- still not sure why anybody thought it was a good idea to move Consumer Health and Animal Health there instead of closing it up at that time. Union and WP are much more of a story.
Thanks for the additional insights -- very valuable!
I've started a new thread, above, on the West Point strike rumor/notion.
Interestingly, worldwide, about 28,000 of Merck's 100,000 employees are covered by union contracts -- and I imagine the bulk of those are European employees (but I could be wrong about that). Thus, a sympathy strike could be a real concern for Whitehouse Station. Any widening strike, spreading from West Point across its Euro facilities would be a real headache for New Merck. And an unwelcome black-eye.
[These labor demographic figures are lifted from the bottom of page 21 of Merck's most recent SEC Form 10-K.]
Namaste
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