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N.J. Plant Moving Work Offshore; 1,600 Face Job Loss
More than 1,600 IUE-CWA members in Edison, N.J., stand to lose their jobs in July when Swedish appliance maker AB Electrolux closes its plant, which makes air conditioners for Frigidaire.
Two IUE-CWA locals, with the assistance of IUE-CWA District 3 President Sal Ingrassia and staff, began bargaining Feb. 19 to secure a severance package to help workers support their families through the next year.
"Despite our best efforts, they've decided to move the work to China," said Jawed Shah, president of IUE-CWA Local 81491. "With Ford Motor Co. also pulling up stakes, they're going to turn Edison into a ghost town."
His brother Syed Shah, president of Local 81401, is equally outraged. "There are a lot of husbands and wives who work in the plant and the closing will have a devastating effect on those families," he said.
Local 81491 represents about 40 technical and salaried workers at the plant. Local 81401 represents more than 1,500 manufacturing and production workers. Westinghouse built the plant 51 years ago and Electrolux has owned it for 15. The company said it intends to cut its global workforce of 87,000 by more than 5,000 jobs, shifting work from the United States and Western Europe to Brazil and Eastern Europe, where wages are far lower.
Last year the workers doubled their rate of production. "I was shocked when they said they were going to close the plant when they were making a profit," Syed Shah said.
His brother said the Electrolux plant in Brazil has the capacity to produce only 400,000 air conditioners per year and cannot possibly absorb the Edison plant's output of 1.5 million. He is convinced the work is going to China. He has been with the company 23 years and said that the majority of the workers have spent most of their careers at the Edison plant. "What they're doing to us, they might as well burn our homes to the ground," he said.
Local 81401 hired an attorney and put together a multimillion-dollar cost savings proposal in an attempt to convince Electrolux to stay. The plan includes a strategy for marketing products made at the plant to U.S. buyers to offset the company's high cost of exporting them.
Local officials were also dismayed by the announcement of the planned closing when they learned of it in mid-December after the local union leaders met with Mayor George Spadoro and gained his support.
"The company has acted very callously and inappropriately by not giving us a real opportunity to present those incentives," Spadoro told the Associated Press.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) also invited Electrolux management to meet with him to discuss the incentives.
Electrolux is the second-biggest employer in Edison after John F. Kennedy Medical Center. Ford, once the largest in Middlesex County, has also begun layoffs in preparation for closing in 2004.
Two IUE-CWA locals, with the assistance of IUE-CWA District 3 President Sal Ingrassia and staff, began bargaining Feb. 19 to secure a severance package to help workers support their families through the next year.
"Despite our best efforts, they've decided to move the work to China," said Jawed Shah, president of IUE-CWA Local 81491. "With Ford Motor Co. also pulling up stakes, they're going to turn Edison into a ghost town."
His brother Syed Shah, president of Local 81401, is equally outraged. "There are a lot of husbands and wives who work in the plant and the closing will have a devastating effect on those families," he said.
Local 81491 represents about 40 technical and salaried workers at the plant. Local 81401 represents more than 1,500 manufacturing and production workers. Westinghouse built the plant 51 years ago and Electrolux has owned it for 15. The company said it intends to cut its global workforce of 87,000 by more than 5,000 jobs, shifting work from the United States and Western Europe to Brazil and Eastern Europe, where wages are far lower.
Last year the workers doubled their rate of production. "I was shocked when they said they were going to close the plant when they were making a profit," Syed Shah said.
His brother said the Electrolux plant in Brazil has the capacity to produce only 400,000 air conditioners per year and cannot possibly absorb the Edison plant's output of 1.5 million. He is convinced the work is going to China. He has been with the company 23 years and said that the majority of the workers have spent most of their careers at the Edison plant. "What they're doing to us, they might as well burn our homes to the ground," he said.
Local 81401 hired an attorney and put together a multimillion-dollar cost savings proposal in an attempt to convince Electrolux to stay. The plan includes a strategy for marketing products made at the plant to U.S. buyers to offset the company's high cost of exporting them.
Local officials were also dismayed by the announcement of the planned closing when they learned of it in mid-December after the local union leaders met with Mayor George Spadoro and gained his support.
"The company has acted very callously and inappropriately by not giving us a real opportunity to present those incentives," Spadoro told the Associated Press.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) also invited Electrolux management to meet with him to discuss the incentives.
Electrolux is the second-biggest employer in Edison after John F. Kennedy Medical Center. Ford, once the largest in Middlesex County, has also begun layoffs in preparation for closing in 2004.