.Layoffs possible at GE
It's been a disastrous year for the locomotive business, but GE Transportation Chief Executive Lorenzo Simonelli said 2010 could be even worse.
Simonelli, who predicted early this year that locomotive production would fall 44 percent in 2009, sees even tougher times ahead and the possibility of more permanent layoffs at Erie County's largest employer.
He said locomotive production could fall another 50 percent from this year's level as the company works to fill a backlog of previous orders, a Wall Street Journal blogger reported Wednesday. At that rate, the work force that built 861 locomotives in 2008 at the Lawrence Park Township factory would be on track to build about 240 in 2010.
Stephan Koller, an Erie-based spokesman for the company, a division of General Electric Co., confirmed the gist of Simonelli's remarks.
"It's not looking good," Koller said. "We are eating away at our backlog, and so it's a shrinking backlog."
The company, Koller has said several times, hasn't received a single order from a North American rail customer this year.
While foreign plants are gearing up to build locomotives from kits built in Erie and at GE's Grove City engine plant, a recent order from Indonesia for 20 locomotives stands as one of the few bright spots for about 4,000 local employees.
That order helps, Koller said. But at a plant that typically builds 800 to 900 locomotives a year, it helps only so much.
A below-par 2009 reflects what company officials were expecting when they announced 350 permanent job cuts in February and placed another 1,200 workers on temporary, lack-of-work layoffs.
Those employees were to return when the work did. At least for now, officials at GE Transportation don't know when that's going to happen. "We are aggressively going after every opportunity worldwide," Koller said.
One of the biggest opportunities, for which the company continues to lobby, would be a contract to build locomotives for a higher-speed rail system being considered as part of federal stimulus spending. But that won't happen overnight.
"There is a high likelihood for permanent work-force reductions if things don't turn around on the order side of the house," Koller said of the short-term outlook.
He wouldn't estimate how large of a reduction the company might consider. He did say cutbacks could come soon.
That bleak assessment comes as no surprise to Jim Pifer, president of Local 506 of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, the company's largest union.
"I have heard the same numbers. I haven't talked to (Simonelli), but we are concerned," Pifer said. "Orders are down. We all know that."
Pifer said the union is trying to do what it can to help.
Union officials "are talking to government officials about getting some stimulus money for Amtrak. We think it's having a positive effect," he said.
But Pifer acknowledged a lot of people, including him, aren't taking anything for granted.
"We are all concerned -- everybody at GE, whether it be management or union leaders," he said. "There is not a lot of work out there now, and 2010 does not look any brighter."
GoErie
Not sure how this fit's in, but it seemed to important to pass up.
Simonelli, who predicted early this year that locomotive production would fall 44 percent in 2009, sees even tougher times ahead and the possibility of more permanent layoffs at Erie County's largest employer.
He said locomotive production could fall another 50 percent from this year's level as the company works to fill a backlog of previous orders, a Wall Street Journal blogger reported Wednesday. At that rate, the work force that built 861 locomotives in 2008 at the Lawrence Park Township factory would be on track to build about 240 in 2010.
Stephan Koller, an Erie-based spokesman for the company, a division of General Electric Co., confirmed the gist of Simonelli's remarks.
"It's not looking good," Koller said. "We are eating away at our backlog, and so it's a shrinking backlog."
The company, Koller has said several times, hasn't received a single order from a North American rail customer this year.
While foreign plants are gearing up to build locomotives from kits built in Erie and at GE's Grove City engine plant, a recent order from Indonesia for 20 locomotives stands as one of the few bright spots for about 4,000 local employees.
That order helps, Koller said. But at a plant that typically builds 800 to 900 locomotives a year, it helps only so much.
A below-par 2009 reflects what company officials were expecting when they announced 350 permanent job cuts in February and placed another 1,200 workers on temporary, lack-of-work layoffs.
Those employees were to return when the work did. At least for now, officials at GE Transportation don't know when that's going to happen. "We are aggressively going after every opportunity worldwide," Koller said.
One of the biggest opportunities, for which the company continues to lobby, would be a contract to build locomotives for a higher-speed rail system being considered as part of federal stimulus spending. But that won't happen overnight.
"There is a high likelihood for permanent work-force reductions if things don't turn around on the order side of the house," Koller said of the short-term outlook.
He wouldn't estimate how large of a reduction the company might consider. He did say cutbacks could come soon.
That bleak assessment comes as no surprise to Jim Pifer, president of Local 506 of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, the company's largest union.
"I have heard the same numbers. I haven't talked to (Simonelli), but we are concerned," Pifer said. "Orders are down. We all know that."
Pifer said the union is trying to do what it can to help.
Union officials "are talking to government officials about getting some stimulus money for Amtrak. We think it's having a positive effect," he said.
But Pifer acknowledged a lot of people, including him, aren't taking anything for granted.
"We are all concerned -- everybody at GE, whether it be management or union leaders," he said. "There is not a lot of work out there now, and 2010 does not look any brighter."
GoErie
Not sure how this fit's in, but it seemed to important to pass up.
posted by madtom at 10:20 PM
1 Comments:
While the powers that be are whistling past the graveyard, we are mirroring, though at a faster pace, the collapse, false recovery, and an even greater collapse in the late 30'S. And 'fighting' to prevent it by making government bigger and more intrusive in daily life. That's what makes Depressions Great.
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