ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, January 25, 1996             TAG: 9601250029
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER 

GE MAY RUN FOR BORDER 1 SALEM LINE COULD BE IN MEXICO BY '97

General Electric Co. has proposed moving the work done by 154 production workers at its Drive Systems plant in Salem to operations in Puerto Rico, China and Mexico.

Managers at the Salem plant have notified the union representing workers affected by the plan that the company intends to make the change in 1997.

Because the plant has increased orders for work on other production lines, workers will be transferred to other jobs and no employees are expected to be laid off, said the company's human resources manager, Jim Batchelor.

The International Union of Electronic Workers, however, wants to keep the work at the plant, fearing the transfer ultimately will mean layoffs. The plant, a unit of the General Electric Co. of Fairfield, Conn., employs 2,000 including 900 hourly production workers.

The union's contract with GE requires that the union be given 45 days to persuade the company to keep any work at the plant that the company plans to move elsewhere. "We don't want to lose any jobs," said Ronnie Carter, vice president of the union local at the plant.

"We're real concerned about job security at GE," Carter said. The company has told the union that it plans to absorb the workers into other jobs, but Carter said the union is concerned the move may lead to layoffs later.

The union has no other recourse but to try to persuade the company to keep the jobs in Salem, Carter said. The average pay of the workers affected by the plan is $15.60 and hour, not including fringe benefits, Carter said. They assemble and wire industrial controls made at the plant.

The affected workers would be performing the same kind of work in their new jobs, but in different production lines, Batchelor said. He said a final decision remains to be made on moving the jobs.

Carter said the company had moved production lines out of the plant before, but in the past three years GE has hired 240 additional hourly workers in Salem.

General Electric last week reported earning $6.57 billion in 1995 on sales of $70 billion, up from $4.73 billion on sales of $60.1 billion in 1994.

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