Friday, October 21, 2005

Organizing Update, Electrical Union News, IUE-CWA Local 201

Oct. 4, 2005
GE Auburn WAGE members speak out after management scapegoats employees for failure to meet production quotas
By Rand Wilson, Local 201 Organizing Director

GE's Auburn electrical components facility did not make its production quota in the third quarter. So management issued a memo reminding everyone about how important it is to keep their breaks short, be at the workstation on time, not linger in the bathroom, etc. They called it getting "back to basics."

Essentially, the "back to basics" mentality shows how management tries to blame employees for the consequences of decisions and practices that workers had no say in. Sound familiar? Several WAGE members in Auburn spoke out about the fallacy of management's thinking in a recent newsletter.

"Every summer it is the same story: increased orders, decreased personnel, and the "have it your way, right away" sales pitch to customers," said Jill Starbird, who does set-up in the VMC dept.

"This summer though, we did not have our Lead to direct us in the most efficient use of personnel and equipment, or coordination with other departments," Starbird continued.

"Customer service warranted that we run a few parts of an order, tear down the setup and run a few parts on another order, and so it would go. We spend more time setting up a job than producing parts."

"Instead of the normal run over three shifts to make 30,000 pieces and then change over, it's 'Run 20 pieces of this' which requires a one-hour change over," said Steve Bean, a welder on the second shift. "Then they tell us run 35 pieces of something else, requiring another hour change over, and then 50 pieces of another part."

WAGE unity works!
In response to WAGE organizing, top management is finally showing some concern at both the Auburn and Somersworth plants.

Somersworth WAGE members passed out a bulletin in early September demanding that the company hire from the recall list. A few days later, a top manager from GE in Atlanta flew up to Somersworth meet with the local managers. Soon afterwards the company rehired everyone on the list at Grade 2.

In Auburn, employees were recently given surveys from Corporate to measure workers' satisfaction with wages and benefits and gauge their morale. Could it be that top management senses that the natives are getting restless?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home