GE versus the Unions

Far be it from me to give advice to union negotiators, but we're talking about a company that makes hundreds of billions of dollars in profits every years and pays not one single dime in taxes. An obscenely rich company that actually steals from working Americans by accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies that it doesn't need.

And yes, also a company that doesn't hesitate to close factories and ship hundreds of thousands of American jobs overseas. But still. I'd love to see the unions play a little hardball with this motherfucker.

From the Courier:

With talks between General Electric and its unions heading toward a Sunday deadline, the company continued to seek to convert union workers to a high-deductible healthcare plan and resisted proposals for early retirement packages, a union official said Friday.

The unions have agreed not to go on strike for at least 10 days, should the midnight Sunday deadline pass without a new contract.

“Health care is at the top of the list,” a Friday update at www.geworkersunited.org, the website of the Coordinated Bargaining Committee of General Electric Unions. Representatives from 10 unions of 15,000 GE workers, including 2,000 IUE-CWA members at Appliance Park in Louisville are bargaining in New York City.

Lack of company willingness to discuss early retirement incentives, a feature popular among veteran workers in recent contracts, is “another wall for negotiators to run into,” the website added.

GE spokeswoman Susan Bishop declined to discuss issues at stake in the talks.

SNIP

Such ”Tier Two” wage agreements were negotiated to keep jobs at Appliance Park, yet preserved “the advantages of still coming to work for GE, especially in Louisville,” Asplen said. GE’s new healthcare proposals “undermine some of those agreements,” she added.

Unions negotiating in New York with GE officials include the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Auto Workers, the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America and the Machinists.

In 2007, GE reached new union contract terms within hours of the deadline. In 2003, workers walked off the job for 2 days before reaching a new labor agreement.

“Nothing can happen until the 29th,” said Brian Tucker, 38, a night shift factory worker from Valley Station said of the first day workers can strike. “We are all in a holding pattern.”