Tagged: kodak

In a filing with the state labor department Wednesday, Kodak says another 141 local workers will lose their jobs.

The majority will be let go by mid-July.

The latest round of local cuts brings the number of layoffs since the imaging company filed for bankruptcy in January to 527.

That's according to the six separate filings Kodak has submitted to the state.

Kodak ended 2011 with just over 5,000 employees in the Rochester area. At its peak in 1982, that number was over 60,000.

Eastman Kodak went before a Manhattan bankruptcy judge this morning, asking to cut the health benefits of some 16,000 Medicare-eligible retirees.

That motion was not acted on.

Judge Allan Gropper essentially put the motion on hold, according to Democrat and Chronicle business reporter Matt Danemam.

"The notion of cutting these retiree benefits moves into second place," Daneman said.

Moving into first: the issue of forming an official retiree's committee, which we reported on earlier this morning.

Later this morning a bankruptcy judge in Manhattan will hear a motion by Kodak to cut the supplemental health benefits of some 16,000 retirees.

While retiree groups are asking Judge Allan Gropper to delay or kill the motion, many local retirees seem resigned.

Kodak's Eastman Business Park (EBP) welcomed its newest tenant Friday. But the park's director says Kodak's bankruptcy is giving pause to some prospective projects.

"I will be honest, some of the very big ones - the $200-, $300 million projects - they've slowed down a bit as they try and determine what perhaps Chapter 11 might mean," EBP Director Mike Alt said Friday. "But most of the other projects are moving forward."

That $300 million project - a biofuel plant headed by the U.S. Renewables Group - is the centerpiece of the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council's strategic plan.

Kodak is kicking off a new round of job cuts - another 91 people in the Rochester area will be out of work by late May.

But the much bigger drop in Kodak's local employment figure is actually the result of a new accounting practice.