Workers told GE plant now won’t close until Nov. 30
Company denies there’s any change to planned September large motors plant closure
Employees at General Electric in Peterborough have been informed the plant will cease manufacturing Nov. 30 rather than Sept. 30, says a union representative – though a company spokeswoman says there’s been no change in plans.
“They (company officials) have communicated to us that they’ll be going until Nov. 30,” said Bill Corp, a Unifor union rep at GE, on Wednesday.
He said 92 people have been laid off and will be leaving by June 15.
It leaves roughly 145 employees at the plant, he said, and of those “a portion” will remain employed by GE until the work tapers off.
The change in date has been suggested before: In January, Mayor Daryl Bennett revealed the plant would stay open roughly until the end of 2018 to complete its work.
But Jenna LaPlante, spokeswoman for General Electric, stated in an email to The Examiner on Wednesday that it’s not true the date for cessation of manufacturing has changed at the local plant.
She also wrote that GE is offering a “comprehensive severance package” and they’ve also hosted a career fair and offered courses in resume writing and interview skills.
“These are just a few of the ways we’re supporting our employees,” she wrote.
In August 2017, General Electric announced it would shut down motors plant manufacturing in Peterborough by September 2018, putting 358 people out of work.
The closure is taking place because production volume in the motors plant has decreased by 60 per cent over the last four years, due to global market conditions, the company said at the time.
The GE plant employed up to 6,000 people
in its heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Over the years it has manufactured everything from streetcars and electric motors to appliances and wind turbine components.
Corp said Wednesday said that there’s now a closure agreement in place at the plant.
In November, talks broke off between the union and the company as they tried to negotiate a closure settlement; one of the issues, according to an internal memo, was that workers from Peterborough were expected to train their overseas counterparts to do their jobs.
Meanwhile GE hasn’t publicly announced what will happen to its property on Park St. once manufacturing ceases.
But the local economic development agency is expecting $140,000 in provincial funding to carry out two projects to help the city adapt to the new post-GE economy.
Rhonda Keenan, the president and CEO of Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development, outlined the projects.
One is a study, to be completed in 2018, to help the local economy shift from a reliance on manufacturing jobs.
The other is a further study, to be done in 2019, to plan a reuse for the GE lands.
She said GE – the owner of the lands on Park St. – is “agreeable” to working with PKED and the city’s planning department next year to plan a reuse for the property.
Meanwhile many former workers at the plant were exposed to toxic chemicals because of workplace conditions following the Second World War and up until about 2000.
Some of those retirees have died or suffered illnesses, prompting workers’ compensation claims, but many of those claims have been rejected.
Groups formed to help those retirees and workers with their claims and to pressure for more help for them.
Currently the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is reviewing 250 previously denied claims in light of new scientific evidence linking workplace toxins to cancer.
As of mid-April, 60 claims that had been denied were accepted and 66 were reviewed but not accepted.