New Flyer lays off 13% of its workforce

[WMAveteran]

Today, 9/5/2009, THE NEW YORK TIMES reported that New Flyer Industries of Winnipeg, Manitoba began laying off 320 people in August because customers had cut back on orders.  As an example, THE TIMES reported that the Chicago Transit Authority used some stimulus money to buy 58 new hybrid buses but shelved "plans to order another 140 buses from them after the state money that it had hoped to use to pay for them failed to materialize."  The company still has a backlog of bus orders "But because its buses are engineered to order for each customer, . . . it cannot easily switch its production schedule to fill the gaps left by the delayed order."

[Scrabbleship]

This all sucks, but the line about delayed state money from Springfield reminds me of the often passionate rants I heard against Gov. Ryan when I was in Chicago a few months back and how he was going to "cut EVERYTHING and ruin Illinois."
Maybe it's time for some TA's to step up  and piggyback off of this delayed order a la what happened with WMATA and the later 4400's.