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UNION: 4-DAY STRIKE IS SET AT GE PLANT

By: Ross Kerber

Boston Globe, October 30, 2002

  Union officials who represent 2,500 employees at General Electric's aircraft engine plant in Lynn plan to begin a four-day strike tomorrow over job security and pension issues as the company shifts work overseas, they said yesterday.

Representatives of Local 201 of the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America said they have made little progress in talks with managers at GE's aircraft engines division, based in Evendale, Ohio. The GE division has said it expects to lay off up to 2,800 of its 26,000 employees worldwide by early 2004, as rising military orders fail to offset a slump in commercial aviation. The forecast has chilled relations with GE's labor force.

Separately, on Sunday the IUE's conference board voted to authorize a national strike if GE presses forward with plans to increase the amount workers and retirees must pay for health care.

GE said it doesn't know how many of about 4,200 jobs in Lynn it might eliminate, but said none of the first wave of 1,000 cuts companywide will affect Local 201.

The union and local politicians say the company isn't doing enough to save jobs and is too interested in cutting costs by shifting work to subcontractors and overseas companies that pay lower wages.

Union president Jeff Crosby and Ric Casilli, its business agent, said GE misled them about the number of jobs that would come to Lynn as part of a $1.9 billion Navy contract to build engines for the F/A-18 fighter. Last summer, the Navy said 58 percent of the work would be done in Lynn, but GE called that figure a mistake and said the actual figure is 18 percent.

GE spokesman Richard Gorham said the difference isn't significant, but union officials said it could amount to as many as 1,000 jobs.

US Representative John Tierney, a Salem Democrat, has asked the Navy and GE to explain the difference and suggested that GE might be required by law to keep more defense work in the United States in the future.

"What's happening here is as this company becomes more multinational it doesn't have the sense of responsibility that corporations used to have," Tierney said. "I think they do that to the detriment of the longer-term stakeholder and the taxpayers."

The union said the four-day walkout would disrupt weekend operations at the plant, which builds engines for regional jets made by Bombardier, and engines for military aircraft, including Army helicopters.

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