The odds are that you have not heard the name of the John Crane Seal Company, but they are actually a fairly large company. For those of you who are not familiar with the company here is a look at how the company describes itself :

“Since the reunification in 1987, John Crane has established itself as a truly global organization. In our united commitment to provide superior service to customers and to be the technological leader in the sealing industry, John Crane continues to invest for growth. In 1998, John Crane acquired three additional sealing companies, Sealol, Safematic and Flexibox. These companies expanded John Crane’s product lines and its global presence to include high quality welded metal bellows seals, focused sealing and lubrication products to serve the pulp and paper market and high temperature and high pressure cartridge seals for pipeline and refinery services.
Crane Packing Company initially manufactured packing and gasketing, which continue to be a John Crane offering today. John Crane mechanical packing is sold under the name Rite-Pack and may be purchased in pre-cut rings or by the pound. The Mechanical Packing Division also produces flat gaskets and live-load packing for valves. Today, John Crane produces 238,856 miles of braided packing each year — enough to reach to the moon and back.  The company also invented the first automotive mechanical seal in 1939. We currently produce millions of seals for American automotive companies and for the automotive aftermarket. “

Now that we have this cleared up, the company is getting ready to layoff about 70 workers in the state of Rhode Island. The company is getting ready to close its Sharpe Drive facility according to reports being put out by the Rhode Island State Department of Labor and Training.

In a statement made to a local branch of Eyewitness News the company had following to say about the job cuts, “As first announced in August last year, John Crane is scheduled to close its Cranston, RI plant and consolidate its operations at other John Crane North America sites as part of its global manufacturing strategy. This move, though regrettable, is crucial if John Crane is to maintain competitiveness and protect its long‐term future in the global marketplace.” At least the workers have some time to prepare for their layoffs, as they will not go into affect until June of this year. While this does give workers several months to prepare and find new jobs, it may not be enough for some of them. At the current moment there are no details being given about any benefits or retraining that the workers may be entitled to as a result of the workers release.

John Crane is not the only company to let go of workers this month. Some of you may recall our earlier coverage of the layoffs at Nokia Siemens Networks, who are planning to layoff 17,000 workers. For those of you who did not catch that coverage here is an excerpt:

“Nokia Siemens Networks,  a telecom equipment manufacturer based in German and Finland has recently announced it intentions to layoff a significant workers. The company is looking to get rid of workers in eight different countries, and this will mean a loss of about 17,000 jobs . Of the cut we do know that   2,900 job cuts in Germany and 1,200 in Finland. The rest of the cuts will come from workers in the other six nations that will be getting the job cuts, meaning that they will bear the brunt of it.”