UPDATE: GE, union meet for talks after strike notice issued

LYNN – With the threat of a strike in one hand, union officials at Lynn’s General Election aviation plant presented a list of demands Friday to GE officials, calling for an end to what they say is the plant’s excessive outsourcing of jobs.UPDATE Union officials will meet with GE representatives Wednesday morning as opposed to Monday afternoonIf negotiations about those demands fail, GE union works could go on strike by the middle of next week, said Ric Casilli, the business agent of the International Union of Electrical Workers Local 201, which represents Lynn’s GE plant. Casilli said it would be the first strike at the plant in at least five years.”Once we’re past 24 hours [from the issue of a strike notice] and we don’t have any settlement, we can go on a strike at any time,” Casilli said Friday afternoon.He added that the union has no immediate plans to go on strike and is looking forward to a second meeting Wednesday morning with GE officials, the time both parties allotted for GE officials to review the union’s demands.”It’s fair,” Casilli said. “They need time to review [everything].”The two proposals presented to GE officials make requests to hire more workers within the plant and undertake what Casilli called “a major overhaul” of the company’s notification process of outsourcing jobs.Casilli said the union is willing to negotiate with GE on its proposals.”There are certain things in it I know they didn’t want and they probably never would agree to, but a lot of it I thought they could agree to,” he said.Union officials issued two strike notices Thursday after hundreds of workers called in sick last week in protest of a union worker’s suspension without pay after an argument with GE managers about outsourcing jobs.GE Spokesman Richard Gorham confirmed GE is reviewing the proposals with plans to meet with the union Wednesday.”We hope that the union doesn’t opt to go on strike at any point,” Gorham said.The Daily Item’s Amber Parcher is following the story and will have a full report in Saturday’s edition of The Daily Item