General
Electric Co. unions representing more than 17,000 employees in
Kentucky, Massachusetts and 21 other U.S. states walked off the
job at midnight for a two-day strike to protest an increase in
their health-care payments.
It’s the first national strike at General Electric in more
than 30 years and involves about 5.5 percent of the company’s
workforce, said Lauren Asplen, spokeswoman for the International
Union of Electronic Workers-Communications Workers of America.
The strike is affecting 48 plants and offices in 23 states,
including businesses that make lighting, jet engines, appliances,
motors and plastics. General Electric, the largest maker of jet
engines and power-generation equipment, said the strike won’t hurt
first-quarter earnings.
The IUE-CWA represents 13,900 General Electric workers and
the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
represents about 3,000.
Plants affected include one in Louisville, Kentucky, that
makes appliances; an aircraft-engine plant in Lynn, Massachusetts
a Schenectady, New York, plant that makes turbines; an Erie,
Pennsylvania, facility that makes locomotives; and a Fort Edward,
New York, plant that makes electric motors and controls.
A worker was killed while picketing outside of the Louisville
plant after being accidentally struck by a police car, Cable News
Network reported.
The unions authorized the strike because of an increase in
the co-payments workers pay for doctor visits that went into
effect Jan. 1. Employees will pay about $200 a year more for
health care, less than 10 percent of the increases borne by the
company, General Electric has said. The unions estimate their cost
will rise closer to $400.
General Electric, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, said the
health-care payment increase will remain. The right to walk out
and to implement the increase were negotiated in the last labor
contract, which expires this year. General Electric’s health-care
costs rose 45 percent to $1.4 billion in 2002 from $965 million in
1999.
Additional increases in health-care costs for workers would
likely prompt another strike in June, when the current contract
expires, IUE-CWA President Ed Fire said Saturday.
Bloomberg News
