LYNN — General Electric (GE) workers are demonstrating at the company’s corporate headquarters in Boston on Monday at noon, following last month’s announcement that more than 80 jobs at the Lynn GE plant are being transferred to other locations and the company is splitting into three separate entities.
The demonstrations are part of a series of GE worker actions across the country on Valentine’s Day, and follow a recent letter that was sent to GE from U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, demanding that GE reverses course on its plans to offshore and outsource 82 jobs from their unionized Lynn factory.
The rally will include GE workers represented by the Industrial Division of Communication Workers of America (IUE-CWA); Greater Boston Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Director of Community Labor United Darlene Lombos; and members of the New Lynn Coalition.
GE workers will be handing out leaflets with signs, shirts, and banners with broken hearts saying “Don’t let private equity break us up.”
There will also be a barbershop quartet performing in a flatbed truck and labor leaders speaking on an elevated stage.
“Unionized General Electric workers are taking action across America, taking aim at the outsized influence of the hedge fund Trian and the role it, and billionaire board members with ties to private equity, have had in the new decision to split apart the GE company,” Build Back Better GE — a group pushing to stop the company from outsourcing — said.
“To date, GE executives failed to answer how the new scheme to split the company would impact its domestic-union manufacturing workforce, from which GE has been divesting jobs for decades, or union-negotiated benefits including retirements and pensions. The decision to split into three separate entities is not set for shareholder vote, and can still be reversed to reinvest in domestic union manufacturing instead.”
Despite receiving billions in taxpayer funding, Build Back Better GE said GE has been offshoring and outsourcing union domestic manufacturing jobs for decades, “leaving devastating impacts on local communities across the country that have been integral to the success garnered by the manufacturing giant today.”
