How will General Electric’s plan to transform in 2023 into three companies, including aviation, translate into survival and growth for the River Works jet engine plant?
The West Lynn plant succeeded the shoe industry as the mainstay manufacturer defining Lynn as an industrial city. But its workforce, as International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) Local 201 President Adam Kaszynski noted in The Daily Item’s Friday edition, has dwindled from 13,000 in the 1980s to 1,775 today with a total of 3,300 workers employed by GE throughout Massachusetts.
Union leaders naturally want GE’s split (the other companies will be health care and energy) to expand union workforces and pour reinvestment dollars into manufacturing processes.
In announcing the split on Tuesday, GE’s H. Lawrence Culp Jr. told The Boston Globe that GE has been “underinvested” by major shareholders who prefer to invest in specific companies rather than GE in its present conglomerate structure.
The good news for the River Works and GE’s aviation division, which employs 40,000 nationally, is that Culp plans to oversee the new aviation company following the split.
“Compete, win, and serve” will be the motto for the chief executive who has worked for three years to stabilize GE, in part by reducing its debt. The additional good news for the River Works is that the plant benefited from $476 million in military jet engine contracts awarded to GE Aviation in 2020.
There is no question GE and the River Works have a sterling reputation for military and commercial jet and helicopter engine production. Union leaders warn the company can’t stay competitive if new facility investments and workforce hiring aren’t undertaken. They have urged GE to stop “offshoring” and focus job creation on American, not foreign, plants.
We are hopeful that GE and the River Works will remain a major manufacturing force under Culp’s leadership following the 2023 corporate split.
