‘The stakes couldn’t be higher’: GE urged to invest in green US jobs

Workers’ rights‘The stakes couldn’t be higher’: GE urged to invest in green US jobsLabor and environmental groups are demanding that General Electric stop offshoring jobs and invest in renewable energy Global development is supported byAbout this contentMichael SainatoTue 12 Oct 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 12 Oct 2021 05.28 EDTKevin Smith, of Salem, Virginia, worked at General Electric for about 20 years before the town’s plant was shut down at the end of 2019, and the work moved to a factory in India.“It was a total shock because of how things had been going, with all the overtime we were working, everything just seemed great, like there was no way this was happening. All I wanted to do was wake up, that I had a nightmare, but that wasn’t the case,” said Smith, 50, who was one of about 265 GE workers who were laid off due to the closure.Because of his age – 48 at the time of the plant closure – Smith was denied a retirement pension. Other job prospects offered much lower pay and worse schedules – he is the father of two children – so he decided to return to school, through a program offered through Trade Adjustment Assistance. “When people started working at GE, for the most part they looked at it being their last job. That’s the way I looked at it,” said Smith, whose father had retired from the same GE plant …

12/10/2021