Ex-IBMers track layoffs

        After two weeks of stealthy layoff notices in more than a dozen U.S. plants, IBM Corp. has cut almost 5,000 jobs. The company has issued no public statement on the extent of the layoffs. But a former employee at IBM's Endicott, N.Y. plant has pieced together a nationwide picture of the layoffs.

        “People are getting very upset that the company isn't being honest about the extent and numbers of job cuts,” said Lee Conrad, who heads AllianceIBM, a division of the Communications Workers of America union that aims to organize IBM employees.
       

Farmland bankrupt

        Farmland Industries Inc. of Kansas City, Mo., the nation's largest farmer-owned cooperative, said Friday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Farmland said it will maintain operations through the reorganization, but will make reductions in its work force. Farmland has lost $120 million in the last two fiscal years.

        The cooperative's third quarter ended on Friday, the same day a $10 million payment was due on a $500 million loan.
       

Tivo loses less

        TiVo Inc. on Friday posted a narrower-than-expected net loss in its fiscal first quarter, as revenue more than tripled because of a growing subscriber base and strong demand for its digital video recorders. For the quarter ended April 30, the San Jose, Calif. company reported a net loss of $35 million, or 74 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $50.2 million, or $1.20 a share, in the same period a year earlier.

        However, the results included charges related to AOL Time Warner Inc.'s June 2000 investment in TiVo. Excluding charges, the company would have posted a loss of $25.8 million. TiVo's recorders allow users to copy television programs onto a computer hard-disk drive.
       

Staff make transfer

        Lucent Technologies Inc. sold some equipment at its North Andover, Mass., manufacturing operation to Solectron Corp. for about $100 million and said 540 employees were hired by Solectron's A-Plus Manufacturing unit.

        Communications networks designer Lucent, based in Murray Hill, N.J., said Friday that nearly a third of the 540 staffers were hired for transitional positions.

        Lucent is expanding the use of contract manufacturers so it can focus resources on developing networking systems.
       

EU delays retaliation

        Reacting to a concession by Washington, the European Union said Friday it will delay by two weeks a threat to impose $300 million in retaliatory tariffs against U.S. imports. American steel tariffs were imposed March 20.

        The EU had planned to impose tariffs on politically sensitive products — from Florida orange juice to North Carolina textiles — on June 18. However, Friday — one day after U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce Grant Aldonas said Washington would admit more European steel without paying penalties — the EU executive Commission in Brussels moved its retaliation date back until July 3.
       

Bank defends work

        The chief executive of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Friday brushed off accusations that its U.S. subsidiary had acted wrongly in its dealings with Enron Corp. before the energy trader collapsed. Lukas Muehlemann told the annual shareholders' meeting that its New York-based investment banking unit Credit Suisse First Boston believed that “based on the information available at the time, it behaved responsibly and appropriately in all the work it did for Enron.”
       

Contract jobs cut

        Energy group BP PLC said in London Friday it planned to shed 800 contract jobs, or 2.4 percent of that work force, inrestructuring its North Sea operations.

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