GE abandons Mass. rail gear production plan
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-ChiefFairfield, Conn.-based General Electric Co. reportedly has postponed a plan to establish locomotive production work at its River Works manufacturing plant in Lynn, Mass., following a breakdown in talks with labor leaders over wages.
International Union of Electrical Workers Local 201 President Jeff Crosby said the company’s push for wage concessions throughout the River Works plant, involving various job disciplines and not just rail, poisoned the negotiations. Among other items, the River Works plant produces jet engines.
Company and union estimates on the amount of jobs the rail work would have generated ranged between 300 and 350. The gear plant closed last year after 75 years of marine gear production.
GE River Works executives opened talks with IUE in March to bring rail jobs to the gear plant after subsidiary GE Transportation started looking for plants to handle excess work orders for locomotives built at its rail plant in Erie, Pa., GE Transportation’s headquarters.
GE spokesman Richard Gorham said any proposal to bring rail jobs to the gear plant would not have been economically competitive without a wage proposal that included River Works aviation jobs. He said company representatives during talks about the rail jobs offered a wage plan for rail workers and created a "two-tier" wage system for future aviation employees.
Gorham said subsidiary GE Transportation will now consider locomotive manufacturing sites in other parts of the country, including Texas.
