GE, union in talks after strike notice

LYNN – The union at Lynn’s General Electric aviation plant could go on strike by the middle of next week if negotiations between the union and plant about outsourcing of jobs fail.Union officials presented a list of demands Friday to GE officials, calling for an end to what they say is the plant’s excessive outsourcing of work. Both parties agreed to meet again Wednesday to negotiate the demands, said Ric Casilli, the business agent of the International Union of Electrical Workers Local 201, which represents Lynn’s GE plant.If negotiations fail, GE union workers could go on strike immediately after, Casilli said.”Once we’re past 24 hours (from issuance 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 plan to go on strike and is looking forward to its second meeting Wednesday afternoon with GE officials.”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.GE union workers have clashed with their managers repeatedly for the past year about what Casilli said is “excessive farming out of work.”Casilli said the union submitted a detailed, one-page proposal with suggestions of how to overhaul the farm-out process, which he said has contributed to too many tasks being shipped out of the plant to companies in Maine and even overseas to companies like Samsung in Korea.Casilli said the outsourcing accelerated in 2012 after about 215 GE workers retired and the company replaced less than half of those positions with new hires.”If they don’t replace them, the managers in the building have to get the work done, so they increase the amount they send out of the plant,” he told the Item on Jan. 21.As a result, the union is also asking GE to hire six or seven operators of a specific machine that cuts aircraft engine parts and hire more inspectors to calibrate gages, which are used to exact perfect sizes of GE parts, Casilli said.Despite the detailed list of demands, 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 Jan. 16 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 again Wednesday.He said GE maintains it followed correct protocol when it outsourced jobs but that officials are willing to negotiate.”We hope that the union doesn’t opt to go on strike at any point,” Gorham said. “That’s not in the best interest of our customers, our employees or the site.”But Casilli, who is tight-lipped about how many workers could go on strike if negotiations fail, said the union needs the strike notices as leverage to work through this long-standing problem with GE.”We feel like we have just issues that we want fixed, and we have control over the timing, place and type of event that we call,” he said. “We measure our actions based on how we feel they are negotiating with us.”Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].