GE to Chicago

[Rahm Emanuel]

Obama has been hanging out with GE CEO Imlett, it is no coincidence that GE moves it's headquarters to Chicago, who's mayor is Obama's ex-chief of staff. Imlett will be getting a cabinet position in return, and when the locomotive industry goes soft the Lawrence Park plant will be moved to Texas. $4.6 billion in sales at the Erie plant compared to $140 million in upgrades in Erie leaves them still with $4.45 billion in revenues,$140 millionis pocket change to a world wide conglomorate. Caterpillar is GE's #1 competitor in locomotives and pays it's employeed half of the wages that are earned in Erie

[Jane Goodall]

the rank and file workers at erie ge can relocate to texas , chicago, chinma, or mexico... all those locations have trailer parks and wal marts.

[Mark Twain]

Buh-bye erie!

[snag]

"blind sided", "troubled", you bet, this just kicked Erie in the goonads! Thanks Obama and your henchmen at G.E. and your old friend the Mayor in Chicago!!

[Withheld]

snag wrote:

"blind sided", "troubled", you bet, this just kicked Erie in the goonads! Thanks Obama and your henchmen at G.E. and your old friend the Mayor in Chicago!!

Why is it that this couldn't have anything to do with being a "smart" business decision in relocating HQ to Chicago? I don't think Erie is such an attractive hub that ONLY businesses that are "repaying favors" will up and leave us. If that were the case, don't you think we'd have tons of corporations looking to set up show/HQ here?

All favors aside, Chicago makes far more sense as a division headquarters for GE than Erie does.

[Rahm Emanuel]

Withheld wrote:

<quoted text>
Why is it that this couldn't have anything to do with being a "smart" business decision in relocating HQ to Chicago? I don't think Erie is such an attractive hub that ONLY businesses that are "repaying favors" will up and leave us. If that were the case, don't you think we'd have tons of corporations looking to set up show/HQ here?
All favors aside, Chicago makes far more sense as a division headquarters for GE than Erie does.

You may have missed the article a month or so ago in the wall street journal that indicated that GE is content for now with it's skilled workforce in Erie since the market for locomotives is booming, but like caterpillar who is known for long range forcasting in it's business and is now GE's #1 competitior in this market, when a downturn in the market happens, for GE to remain competitive and maintain it's lead they will explore a move to another area that is not highly unionized and forced to pay wages that are double that of Caterpilar. That decision will now be made by the 50 executives that no longer live in Erie, thus making it easier to cut the ties to Erie.

[Hoffa]

It is amazing to see how everyone except the union fools with their blinders on can see this! Oh yes because they believe that nothing can be done to their jobs because they are union. Until the plant shuts down! As said above these clowns that point out the 140 million in improvements made at the plant have no clue. That is nothing to them and more likely than not was done to help the company pay NO taxes last year because of all the "green upgrades" they made to get huge tax cuts.

Why didn't they just do a 250 million dollar project and update the plant to handle all the work that is going to Texas? Think about it people and quit blindly following your union bosses who say "Oh it's ok they assured us we are a key plant". Till they can make a bigger profit some where else.

[snag]

Pa. has some big disadvantages, we are not a "right to work state" and we have to use "Davis - Bacon Law" for contracts which inflate labor costs 15-25% on each job!
Plus, we lack a creditable, well known, research and development program in high tech arena.

[Jane Goodall]

Hoffa wrote:

It is amazing to see how everyone except the union fools with their blinders on can see this! Oh yes because they believe that nothing can be done to their jobs because they are union. Until the plant shuts down! As said above these clowns that point out the 140 million in improvements made at the plant have no clue. That is nothing to them and more likely than not was done to help the company pay NO taxes last year because of all the "green upgrades" they made to get huge tax cuts.
Why didn't they just do a 250 million dollar project and update the plant to handle all the work that is going to Texas? Think about it people and quit blindly following your union bosses who say "Oh it's ok they assured us we are a key plant". Till they can make a bigger profit some where else.

union members don't think woith their heads....

[TALLY]

What do they think "woith"?

[Withheld]

Rahm Emanuel wrote:

<quoted text>You may have missed the article a month or so ago in the wall street journal that indicated that GE is content for now with it's skilled workforce in Erie since the market for locomotives is booming, but like caterpillar who is known for long range forcasting in it's business and is now GE's #1 competitior in this market, when a downturn in the market happens, for GE to remain competitive and maintain it's lead they will explore a move to another area that is not highly unionized and forced to pay wages that are double that of Caterpilar. That decision will now be made by the 50 executives that no longer live in Erie, thus making it easier to cut the ties to Erie.

We clearly agree, as I was saying the move was not done to "pay back a political favor" like others had implied. Why couldn't the move have been done because it made "business sense"?