Peterborough GE plant to close next year

358 JOBS LOST

BRENNAN DOHERTY More than 350 workers at a General Electric plant in Peterborough, Ont., will be losing their jobs as the 125-year-old facility ceases manufacturing next year.

Kim Warburton, a spokeswoman for GE Canada, said a drop in global demand for the company’s goods prompted the decision that was announced Friday.

The plant currently produces large engines for the oil and mining industries. Sales volume at the plant has fallen by 60 per cent over the last four years, Warburton said.

“There’s just no way we can keep going with that business model,” she said.

The plant — GE’s first in Canada — will lose 358 manufacturing workers by the fall of 2018, Warburton said.

“It’s been a really tough day. But the businesses had to make that decision,” she said.

An engineering division of the plant will remain in operation, with 50 engineering service workers employed, Warburton noted.

Unifor, the union which represents the plant’s workers, accused GE of outsourcing production to the United Kingdom, Brazil, France, and Mexico.

“General Electric has been an integral part of Peterborough’s history for over a century,” Jerry Dias, Unifor’s national president, said in a statement. “Now the company is rewarding the loyalty of the community by pulling up the stakes and moving jobs out of the country.”

The union said it will begin negotiating a closure agreement with GE in midSeptember.

Daryl Bennett, the mayor of Peterborough, called the news a “drastic reversal” from an announcement made by GE in 2014 that it would be adding 250 new jobs to build motors for the TransCanada Energy East pipeline.

“It will be a difficult time for many residents who are connected with GE or who have historical ties to the company,” Bennett said in a statement released by his office on Friday.

The plant, founded by famous inventor Thomas Edison, has been open since 1892. During the 1960s, it was one of Canada’s largest factories, employing more than 6,500 people.