By GE Zhenwei
"Goodbye, BDCI! Goodbye Stanley Black & Decker, my second home for more than ten years!"
On October 30, TANG Hong posted a picture of the firm's compensation scheme on his WeChat moments and bade farewell to the company that had fed his family and provided him with friends and acquaintances for 17 years.
Stanley Black & Decker’s wholly-owned China unit start the process of dissolving on October 26. On November 2nd, a Jiemian News reporter called the firm, no one answered.
In 1995, Black & Decker took the lead in establishing an Asian production base in the Singapore Industrial Park in Suzhou, establishing a joint venture with Chiaphua Industries Ltd in Shenzhen. In 2010, Stanley announced a merger with Black & Decker to form the Stanley Black & Decker Group. Last year, the group ranked 228th in the top 500 US companies.
Formed in 2010 and located in Jiehe Industrial City, Shenzhen, BDCI produces electric drills, small household appliances, and other products. The firm was commended by Shenzhen Baoan District in August this year, so the sudden dissolution is a big surprise.
Well, it is and it isn’t.
Thank you for your service
With more than 4,000 employees at its peak, the company's 2019 report gave the number as 1,194. By October, there were 830 employees in the company's WeChat group, which according to Tang, was all that left in the company.
Regarding redundancy payments, the specific compensation scheme is N+1+X+2000, where N is the statutory compensation, X a seniority factor, and 2000 is a bonus for accepting the deal by Oct. 26.
According to Tang, a manager of more than 20 years received 640,000 yuan (US$95,000) in full on October 29.
As of October 31, almost all of the employees had left the factory, except for a few left behind to clean up.
Smooth exit
"We knew it for a year or two," said Tang. He and WANG Ziqiang, an employee who has been working for the company for six years, believe the plan was made long ago, and both expect Stanley Black & Decker to move to Suzhou and Vietnam.
"The electric power tool line was moved to Vietnam last year. the vacuum cleaner line to Suzhou. most workers didn't really want to move to the Suzhou factory," Tang said.
Stanley Black & Decker’s 2019 report shows total assets of just over 1 billion yuan, with sales just over twice that. Net profit was only 150 million yuan, with liabilities of 560 million yuan.
According to the Securities Times, rising rents were one reason to quit Shenzhen. The lease in Jiehe Industrial City will expire next year and the rent is now unaffordable. "Last year the rent rose by 10 percent. This year it rose by 25 percent," Wang said. The land in Suzhou is the company’s own.
Tang believes that the main reason lies in increasing materials costs. “Tariffs may also be a factor. The company paid 80 million more tariffs last year than the year before,” he said.
Shenzhen is not the “World’s Factory” it once was. According to the "Special Work Report on the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Shenzhen in 2018," 91 big industrial enterprises moved out in 2018. Foreign enterprises – Philips, Samsung, Epson, and Olympus among them – have sought pastures new.
"Everything went very smoothly," said the security guard at the gate of Jiehe Industrial City.
Wang said he is not anxious to find a new job, his experience in Stanley Black & Decker gave him leverage to pick the next stop. Actually, headhunters from eight companies came to the industrial park with lawyers and government officials on the day Stanley Black & Decker's dissolution, many workers started working in a new factory on the same day after they left.
"Headhunters already found me," Wang told Jiemian News. "I'll just have to see whose offer suit me better."
