LYNN — As news broke this week to employees at General Electric (GE) that about 80 jobs at the Lynn plant will be outsourced, a GE spokesperson said those losing their jobs will be offered other opportunities at the company.
The Transfer of Work (TOW) plan, which is still currently in negotiations with the union, says that all 82 workers in the impacted areas who are being outsourced will be able to transfer to other jobs within the plant if they choose to.
These transfers will take place over the next 18 months, said the communications specialist for the GE location in Lynn, Alexis Kievning. There will be a 90-day bargaining period after the announcement.
“Moving this work enables us to redeploy our highly skilled workforce to more strategic areas within the Lynn operation, which in turn will improve on-time delivery,” Kievning said. “The vast majority of the work being transferred will remain in the United States. Any military-related work moving overseas is done in compliance with our military contractual obligations.”
Lynn has about 2,500 professional and production employees, including around 1,350 represented employees across four unions; about 1,200 of those employees are IUE-CWA Local 201 members.
Members of the IUE-CWA Local 201 have been vocal about their opposition to outsourcing jobs, with President Adam Kaszynski saying GE has plenty of space and resources in the Lynn facility to do its work efficiently, on time, and on budget, including a committed and highly skilled local workforce.
Kaszynski also said GE is putting $2 billion into splitting the company into three smaller companies, rather than using that money to focus on keeping the jobs in the country and investing in plants like Lynn.
However, Kievning said GE Aviation has invested more than $100 million in the Lynn facility in the past five years, including $30 million in 2021.
Lynn has also not experienced any involuntary hourly layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a nearly 25-percent global employee reduction throughout GE Aviation.
“There is no involuntary job loss related to this action, period,” Kievning said. “Despite historic challenges facing the aviation industry, we are actively hiring at our Lynn facility, where we invested more than $30 million last year alone, all part of our ongoing effort to improve on time delivery for our customers.”
The Lynn plant has hired more than 1,000 employees since 2017 and currently has more than 100 jobs open for hire at the site, according to Kievning, and more than 550 of those hires were hourly and production employees.
