Posted on Wed, Apr. 01, 2009
BSN Medical to close Miramar site; jobs go to Mexico
BY SCOTT ANDRON
A medical products company is closing down its Miramar manufacturing site, laying off 163 people and sending most of their work to Reynosa, Mexico.
BSN Medical, a German firm, bought South Florida-based FLA Orthopedics in 2007, and now the new owner is consolidating operations.

BSN told Florida's Agency for Workforce Innovation that the cuts will take place between May and September.

John Poag, BSN's vice president for human resources for the Americas, said the Miramar plant's operations will be consolidated with facilities in North Carolina and Reynosa, a city just across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas. ''The majority of the production is going to Reynosa,'' Poag said.

Workers will receive severence pay and outplacement help, he said.

The Miramar facility makes orthopedic support products, such as those used by patients with broken limbs.

FLA Orthopedics was founded as Florida Orthopedics in Hialeah in 1974.

BSN is the second South Florida medical products company this year to announce plans to move jobs to Mexico.

Johnson & Johnson said in January it was eliminating 159 jobs in Miami Lakes and transferring the work to Ciudad Juárez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The company's Codman Neurovascular unit said it will eliminate the jobs by April 30.
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/977995.html