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   Vol.66/No.44           November 25, 2002  
 
 
Boston-area GE workers
strike to oppose layoffs
(front page)
 
BY MAGGIE TROWE
AND ELLEN BRICKLEY

LYNN, Massachusetts--More than 2,500 unionists staged a four-day strike against General Electric Co. at the Lynn Riverworks aircraft engine plant here. The members of Local 201 of the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) walked out November 7 to protest the aircraft giant’s outsourcing of jobs, attacks on pensions, and the bosses’ plan to lay off more than 10 percent of the workforce.

The Lynn plant produces engines for military and commercial aircraft, including the Navy’s F/A-18 fighter jet. GE, which employs 26,000 workers worldwide, has already announced it will lay off as many as 2,800 people by 2004, citing a "worldwide aviation slump" in orders for new engines.

In the third quarter of 2002, however, the employers reported a record net profit of $4.1 billion, putting the company on track to earn its goal of $16 billion this year, the union’s web site stated.

Carrying a placard that read "Jobs Not Greed," Tony, 42, who gave only his first name, pointed to the company’s failure to replace machine operators who quit or retire as one of its methods of cutting jobs. "They bring in subcontractors to the plant, too," as another way to reduce union jobs, he added.

Union officials and local capitalist politicians have also charged the company with sending jobs "overseas."

Local 201 is the third largest local union organizing GE workers. Locals at GE’s largest plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, and at the facility in Schenectady, New York, have also issued strike notices over company job cuts.

Local 201 strikers received support from other unionists in the area, including members of the Teamsters, and a delegation of Boston janitors organized by the Service Employees International Union, who recently carried out a month-long strike to win health insurance and a wage increase.

At the national level, delegates to the IUE-CWA/GE Conference Board meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, voted unanimously on October 25 to authorize a national strike if the company persists with plans to increase health care co-payments for workers and retirees.

Negotiations over a new national contract are set to begin in 2003. It has been three decades since workers carried out a national strike against GE.  
 
 
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