Editorial: Are Philips Respironics jobs another covid casualty?

Philips Respironics is taking its manufacturing out of Murrysville and Upper Burrell. The Bakery Square workers will head to other locations by the end of the year. In a series of unkind cuts, 300 jobs will be lost, and 500 will be moved.

It’s a blow. It is not, however, an unexpected one if those marketing the space are to be believed.

“This has been in the works,” said Gregg Perelman of Walnut Capital, owner of the Bakery Square property.

He blamed it on covid. That’s an interesting take, as Philips spent much of the pandemic making the ventilators that were in high demand for hospitalized patients.

Most people would be likely to assume the problem is the $1.1 billion settlement Philips agreed to pay as part of personal injury lawsuits for millions of recalled sleep apnea machines. There’s also the consent decree entered in April that makes the company address a laundry list of issues with its manufacturing while not admitting it did anything wrong.

The announcement and the response are frustrating. The relationship between commerce and community is a constant balancing act.

Pennsylvania long has been a cluster of company towns surrounding coal, steel and manufacturing. That is how we frequently envision the economy, less like a circle of life and more like a pyramid with big businesses at the apex.

It’s wrong. Business depends on people, too. Despite what sci-fi movies tell us, we have not been replaced by robots, and, while artificial intelligence is gaining, it hasn’t staged a coup yet. Corporations need people to build their products, market their products, sell their products, provide the investment for those products — and let’s not forget someone has to buy those products.

History shows us businesses often put profit before people. Even when this is hauled into the light, people still tend to bear the burden. Sometimes it’s ecological — like waste polluting ground, water or air. Sometimes it’s about the constant sword of potential unemployment hanging overhead.

Yes, it is likely the departure of Philips and the evaporation of those jobs has been on the horizon for years now — whether from the pandemic or the 2021 recalls.

But companies are made up of more than incorporation papers, leases and bottom lines. The loss of 800 jobs by layoff or relocation is a breathtaking blow to the people who cashed those paychecks and the communities the company called home.