GE hiring 480 workers at Appliance Park

[supersuds]

Thought this good news was worth sharing.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal:

"Delivering on promises to bring jobs back to Appliance Park, General Electric will take applications for 480 new factory positions starting Wednesday morning.

The first of $13 hourly posts begin in February, when GE’s Consumer & Industrial division launches one new shift manufacturing the GeoSpring water heater in long dormant Building 2 at the 900-acre complex. Soon after, GE will begin manufacturing bottom freezer refrigerators in Building 5.

Mostly vacant since GE abandoned range production in Louisville in the late 1980s, Building 2 is currently home to construction workers installing conveyor belts and other factory equipment where GE employees will manufacture the water heater now made in China."

While $13 hourly wages do not compare with veteran IUE-CWA Local 761 workers who earn twice that at Appliance Park, they have been crucial to the survival of GE manufacturing in Louisville, Local 761 president Jerry Carney and GE officials say.

“We are transforming Appliance Park. We are awakening a dinosaur,” Carney said of the complex that employed 17,000 blue collar workers in the early 1980s. “Our members have sacrificed to keep jobs here.”

GE lost $55 million on its Appliance Park operation last year. Before the recession demolished the housing market, the company thought 2010 could be a break even year for Appliance Park. Now, GE projects new home starts, which are the backbone of the appliance business, will not return to health until 2015.

“At least GE has enough faith in us to keep trying to turn the place around. We are in a depression in the appliance industry,” Carney added. “We will fight to keep raising wages up, but we can’t improve jobs that are not here. We have got to be competitive and make Appliance Park profitable.”

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110923/BUSINESS/309230051/General-Electric-hire-480-factory-workers

 

[arbilab]

AMERICAN MANUFACTURING JOBS?? Wow, that IS a headline.

 

[petek]

That is good news and hopefully people will buy them.

What I don't understand is that people are quite willing to shell out for example $80-120 on a Chinese made toaster or blender alongside the $20 Chinese toasters and blenders and I can see possibly how GE might not be able to make a profit selling a $20 toaster or blender these days what with the wage disparities between Chinese and American/Euro workers.. BUT I'd almost bet dollars to donuts that GE could make just as fancy toasters/blenders in the US selling for $80-$120 and make a profit on them.. because really, when you look at the $20 Chinese toaster/blender and the $80-$120 model, sometimes there pretty much the same machine, just fancied up some more for a whopping amount more money..

 

[rapunzel]

Why don't they reclaim their traditional export markets?

GE appliances used to be widely available in Australia and a well-known, popular brand. Then they just disappeared and other companies filled the void. Why American companies operate like that is mystery to me, but they only have themselves to blame.

 

[appnut]

Yay!!!

 

[petek]

It's not just American companies, it's pretty much all of them worldwide including Australias Breville, like my Breville Panini/sandwich press.. made in China.

 

[mattl]

I don't know if I'd say yay, but it's something.  The people they hire at $13 will not have the buying power needed to boost the economy.  The simple fact is the middle class drove the economy, and what has been eliminated --- the middle class.  The ubre rich can only buy so many water heaters and toasters, but with an upwardly mobile middle class there is demand- for new housing, for new appliances, for new everything.

 

At $13 hour in this economy it's just above sustenance level.  Those folks are not going to go out and buy a new house, or car, they might buy a $20 Chinese blender, but that is not going to help the economy.

 

[supersuds]

I'm afraid not many people pay attention to where their appliances are made. I'll bet that not one buyer in 10 realizes his GE frontloader is made in China. Consumer Reports doesn't consider it worth mentioning.

It would be interesting to know how much of the heat pump water heater will be US-made -- I guess the compressor will not be, anyway.

All in all, I'd think its better for the US to be employing people at low wages than paying them unemployment. At least they've got a chance to earn more later.

 

[swillis]

I just got the news that I am onboard at GE. It has been almost a two year process and they are still hiring six hundred more. Applications are being taken online tomorrow evening. I am still waiting to hear when my start date will be. Anybody in Louisville or close by may want to apply. I am taking a pay cut but will be leaving 25 years of retail sales to assemble appliances with weekends off.

 

[supersuds]

Wow!

Congrats! Hope it gives you everything you're wishing for!

 

[swillis]

Thank you.....after 25 years of retail sales, I will be getting paid to do something I already enjoy doing. The pay is not the best but I have lived within my means and can easily do well with the pay. From what I hear there will be plenty of opportunities for overtime too. Anyone that has been in retail and dealt with the public everyday can understand. People in general are just broke and bitter when it comes with parting with money. They can wear you down. I have yet to see a washer or refrigerator argue with me....lol. GE is supposedly bringing more and more back to appliance park in the years ahead. Hopefully that will happen and maybe it can be what it once was.

 

[rapunzel]

"It's not just American companies, it's pretty much all of them worldwide including Australias Breville, like my Breville Panini/sandwich press.. made in China."

I wasn't actually referring to that. What I have always found very strange was the habit of American companies to just pack up and disappear altogether. GE, like many other American brands, were well-established for many decades in the Australian market place. Then, virtually overnight, they just packed up and left. I know that it probably is all part of the super-smart(arse) economists' view of efficiency, economies of scale and blah, blah. Though, without sounding ignorant, wouldn't one of the basic rules of business be not to ever surrender one's market share to the competition?

Having products made in China is a different issue. The companies that sub-contract the manufacture of their goods to China still rake in the bulk of the profits derived from their sale.

So, whether or not GE branded whitegoods that are sold outside of the US are made in Pingpong land or not, their sale still benefits the company and therefore, one would assume, the US.

It seems to me that all this super-smartness on Wall street and in corporate boardrooms is turning out to be a bunch of crap. Maybe it's time to rethink economic theories, get back to basics and focus on real vs imaginary value creation.

 

[supersuds]

Hard to say

From what I've heard, Kelvinator has stayed on the Australian market long after it disappeared from the U.S.