Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 11, 1993 TAG: 9306110135
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hiring for the positions - described in a company statement as "generally assembly and wiring jobs" - is scheduled to begin next month and be completed by the end of August.
But with the announcement came a caution: The company still is "not sure" of the exact number of jobs to be added, company spokesman Mike Allee said. "We really don't know at this point."
New workers initially will be paid between $9.23 per hour and $9.50 per hour, depending on the assignment, he added.
"I'm glad our business is such that we can hire people," said Gerald Meadows, president of both the Roanoke United Central Labor Council and Local 161 of the International Union of Electronic Workers. "It's definitely good news. It's good news for the job security of the people there," who will move up the seniority ladder when new workers are hired.
GE Drive Systems, a unit of General Electric Co., intends to use the Virginia Employment Commission to find and screen prospective employees. Because the Salem plant has not laid off hourly workers in more than five years, the company said there are no former GE workers with recall rights.
The company also said it plans to promote 70 employees to "higher-paying jobs as a result of the plant's internal job posting system.
"The people in our business are very proud of the fact that GE Salem went through the recession without any layoffs," Allee said in the statement. "During that time, we focused on eliminating expenses - not people."
The new jobs will bring GE's Salem work force to more than 2,100, 950 of whom are hourly production workers. GE Drive Systems makes controls, industrial drives and automation systems for such industries as steel, paper and power generation.
by CNB