Worker Hangs Self from Crane at G.E. Erie Plant after Massive Layoffs

[warrprayer]

Last edited Sun Nov 17, 2013, 02:06 PM - Edit history (1)

(cross posted from LBN)


<snip>

Authorities probe reported hanging at GE plant

Staff report, Erie Times-News










Authorities are investigating a reported hanging tonight in Building 20 at GE Transportation, 2901 East Lake Road, in Lawrence Park Township, according to Erie County dispatch.


Township police and fire crews were called to the plant at about 7:23 p.m. after workers discovered a person hanging from a crane in Building 20, according to county dispatch.


No other details were immediately available

<snip>

Read more: http://www.goerie.com/article/20131115/NEWS02/311159852/Authorities-probe-reported-hanging-at-GE-plant


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This is after nearly 1,000 jobs are being outsourced to G.E.'s new plant in fT. Worth Texas. Rumor on my local message board from G.E. workers is that the victim is a woman who recently learned she was being laid off.
Funny how well G.E. has managed to keep this little human interest story quiet, one would think this would be all over national news networks. Guess all their media holdings pay off when it counts.
We certainly wouldn't want to interrupt "Duck Dynasty" or "Honey Boo Boo" to show the proles the real cost of vulture capitalism.

UPDATE:
"Published: November 16, 2013 9:18 PM EST
Updated: November 16, 2013 9:16 PM EST

Deputy coroner: Death at GE in Lawrence Park investigated as suicide

Staff report, Erie Times-News










A 57-year-old Erie man was found dead at his work station inside Building 20 on Friday at GE Transportation in Lawrence Park.


Erie County Deputy Coroner Korac Timon confirmed the death today and said there has not yet been a ruling on it, but that it was being investigated as a suicide.


Timon would not identify the man pending notification of family.


Authorities were called to the plant Friday at about 7:23 p.m. on a report of a hanging from a crane at the building.


GE Transportation spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said the victim was a man employed at the plant. Timon said the man had worked there for more than 30 years.


"Our thoughts are with the employee's family and co-workers. Professionals from GE's Employee Assistance Program will be on-site this weekend and available to help support employees during this difficult time,'' Erickson said in an e-mail.


Timon said the man's body was found by a co-worker, less than an hour after the last time he had been seen alive. While no official ruling has been made, "it is not a work-related accident," he said."
So it was not a woman. not that it makes any difference.

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. "Outsourced" to its own plant in Texas?

That makes no sense.

[warrprayer]

4. outsourced

to a non union shop is still outsourcing.

[whistler162]

20. No it isn't it is moving jobs to a non-union shop

[Kingofalldems]

12. I bet Rick Perry is proud of himself.

[TheCowsCameHome]

14. Screwing from within - it's the corporate way.

[KamaAina]

32. Well, Goodhair does want Texas to secede

[fadedrose]

2. I'm guessing she wasn't one of the dancers and singers

in the GE Commercials that told us how good they were to their employees. And I believed that BS.

One good thing the lady did to show sympathy for the other employees and contempt for GE was to choose Building 20 in the GE Erie plant.

Enjoy Texas, GE. I hope that Sen. Wendy Davis comes after you...

[warrprayer]

6. ....

[fasttense]

3. I wonder what the woman's name was?

Why should GE be allowed to destroy 1,000 people's lives with no concern or cost? Who died and left GE and its shareholders the boss of Erie County? GE has a responsibility to those people, that community and humanity. They act like they can rampage and pillage without any consequences.

I hate capitalism. It turns greedy parasites into kings.

[warrprayer]

5. we are equipment to them

(bad sound but what a great movie)

[hfojvt]

9. actually equipment is expensive

as Lech Walesa said, he visited the plant where he worked and saw his job being done by a machine. Well they HAD to make sure the machine did not get too hot or too cold, had to make sure the air was clean so it would not get clogged by dust. And so on.

They had to take care of the machine, but people. Well, people, once the job has been dumbed down enough, are easily replaceable.

[warrprayer]

8. I should point out here

that it is not confirmed this was a woman. It is confirmed someone hung themselves from a crane.

[warrprayer]

7. a "reported" hanging

no need for alarm...

"Township police and fire crews were called to the plant at about 7:23 p.m. after workers discovered a person hanging from a crane in Building 20, according to county dispatch. "

gotta love this shit.

[legcramp]

10. Must be just a rumor, I just checked the GEMSNBC site

and not a word of it.

They would know, wouldn't they?

[OldRedneck]

11. Levi Strauss, Mountain City, TN

From 1996 to 2002 I was executive director of a non-profit affiliated with the Methodist Church, working in NE TN and SW VA, repairing and building houses for low- and very-low income families. We worked in Washington County, TN, home of Mountain City, TN.

The biggest employer in Mountain City was Levi Strauss, employing something like 350 people . . . good jobs, decent hourly wages, good benefits.

One day in 1999 I was in Mountain City for the board meeting of a local housing agency ( headed by a retired Marine general !). He told me to get in his truck, he wanted to show me something. We drove to the Levi plant. The parking lot was all but empty. Six flat-bed trailers were backed up to the loading docks and something was going on inside the plant. We went onto the loading dock and talked to a couple of the truck drivers.

Levi was closing the plant . . . they announced the closing a week or so after this visit. Some of the workers were in the plant, disconnecting the equipment, fork-lifting the equipment onto pallets, shrink-wrapping it, and loading it onto the flat-beds. The drivers told us they were leaving Mountain City and driving directly to a new Levi's plant in XXXXX, Mexico, where the equipment would be installed.

Levi gave the Mountain City employees a typical separation package. As I recall it was something like two month's pay and retain their health insurance and life insurance for six months ( one of their optional benefits was a $100,000 life insurance policy -- Levi split the cost with any employee who wanted it ).

Within the next two months, two laid-off employees killed themselves. Both were the sole support for elderly parents; one was a volunteer with my Marine friend's organization. Both killed themselves so their elderly parents would get the $100,000 insurance settlement.

I guess that's about what a human life is worth.

To this day I refuse to wear anything made by Levi Strauss. Instead, I wear Pointer Brand jeans, manufactured by the L. C. King Co., Bristol, TN . . . a mom-and-pop company that hires local people and is not moving to Mexico.
https://www.pointerbrand.com/

[flying rabbit]

13. Thanks for that link. nt

[fasttense]

16. I live in East TN and never heard about that particular episode of corporate cruelty.

I know several people who earned money to go to college by working at the clothing factories throughout East TN and North Carolina. Now the factories are all gone and grandparents wonder why their kids aren't working their way through college too.

I do believe capitalism was modeled after feudalism and slavery. Those were the major economic systems that the uber rich got wealthy off of so they used them as basic models when they pushed capitalism onto everyone. Then corporate capitalism was invented to allow greedy psychopaths to hide behind corporate masks. So, now we have the worst of both systems. We have royal bosses who rule over employees like kings and we have Corporate owners who control every aspect of an employee's life with a simple decision of where to put a money making proposition. We have the sadistic slave overseer called CEOs who carry out with glee the most destructive fantasies of greedy psychopaths.

That is our capitalist system and we should have evolved away from it by now. Instead we have doubled down on the corruption and the destruction.

[DiverDave]

17. LEVI'S moved because WALMART told them to.

WALMART, the soulless bastards, told them that they wouldnt sell the jeans for the price they were being made for.
FUCKING walmart closed levi strauss

Snip:

If Levi clothing is a runaway hit at Wal-Mart, that may indeed rescue Levi as a business. But what will have been rescued? The Signature line--it includes clothing for girls, boys, men, and women--is an odd departure for a company whose brand has long been an American icon. Some of the jeans have the look, the fingertip feel, of pricier Levis. But much of the clothing has the look and feel it must have, given its price (around $23 for adult pants): cheap. Cheap and disappointing to find labeled with Levi Strauss's name. And just five days before the cheery profit news, Levi had another announcement: It is closing its last two U.S. factories, both in San Antonio, and laying off more than 2,500 workers, or 21% of its workforce. A company that 22 years ago had 60 clothing plants in the United States--and that was known as one of the most socially reponsible corporations on the planet--will, by 2004, not make any clothes at all. It will just import them.

http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

I remember when Levi's 501's would last forever, now not so much. Lighter denim, you see.

Oh, and thanks for the link, I will buy there too.

[CrispyQ]

18. I believe they told Radio Flyer wagon company they had to move production to China

or they would discontinue carrying the brand in their stores.

[Ikonoklast]

27. Rubbermaid was also destroyed by giving into Walmart.

[KittyWampus]

22. Thanks for the link. I bookmarked and will look later. Will also be sure to pass it on.

[JaneyVee]

15. What was that GE jingle again?

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. when I grew up in small town on the edge of Erie County back in the late 60's early 70's

getting a job at GE in Erie was viewed as a probable career for life. They even had a program where GE partially sponsored an advanced electronic program at the high school. - Those who completed four years of electronics - could move right into a career ladder at GE. I guess that way of life is long gone.

[Demo_Chris]

21. Tragic. But a thousand Texas workers just got jobs...

I don't know what the right answer is, but at the least they didn't move the jobs to China. The latter is the real killer.

I suppose that's what we need to control. If we can keep the jobs here, and force companies to make it here if they want to sell it here, then there will be some demand for labor again, and this plant might never have moved.

[Populist_Prole]

24. Tragic. Full stop. No "buts". It's a race to the bottom, pure and simple.

A thousand gainfully employed people in an already hard hit area lost their livelihoods. A like number got lower paying ones in an area the poached the jobs from the northeast.

What's worse is the deception. The new plant was ballyhooed by GE to be one that augments current production, not a wholesale replacement.

Fucking bastards.

[Demo_Chris]

25. I hear you...

We either stop it with this so-called free trade or this is going to continue. Again, at least the jobs remained here in America. For the people in Texas this will be fantastic. They need jobs too. Everyone does.

[Populist_Prole]

28. Yes on your first point but I still see no good in this at all

It's not like this was a magic windfall from the heavens that just happened to land in Texas. This is to the absolute detriment of another area....and the employees in Tx are being paid significantly less. I also wonder of the voting politics of the displaced group vs the new. Also, in the wake of the mechanic layoffs at American Airlines in the area, GE was not hiring any of them because they were union employees. Reading some of the comments from this being reported on, the citizenry in the area were downright vile....congratulating GE for their decision not to hire ex-AA employees.

Nothing good comes of this, other than an emboldened red state ( from their point of view )

[warrprayer]

23. UPDATED OP

... to report new information.

[AndyA]

26. GE: We bring good things to life...not so much

My sympathies to the family and loved ones of the deceased. Shame on corporate America for having zero concern for others.

[madinmaryland]

29. My Grandfather worked there from the early 1940's to the late 1960's...

I drove by it 4-5 years ago when it was apparently still open. Sad day.

[Brigid]

30. I wonder if Big Ed will talk about this on his show Monday.

Very sad story.

[warrprayer]

31. hope so

but the coverage here in Erie has been smothered.