Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 1, 1995                   TAG: 9504030046
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WORKERS AT GE GO ON STRIKE

The department-level strike was called at 11 p.m. Wednesday by one of the three senior workers whose grievances were left unresolved after going through a three-step grievance procedure.

Although workers in other departments joined the strike in sympathy, the plant continues to operate, making computerized industrial controls.

The union's contract with GE allows workers to strike over unresolved grievances and those from other departments to walk out in sympathy, said Gerald Meadows, president of Local 161 of the International Union of Electronic Workers.

The strikers, who haven't set up any picket lines, will return to work next week, Meadows said. He declined to specify what day that would be.

GE's position, said company spokesman Mike Allee, is that the worker who was picked for the promotion to a production team leader in the final-assembly section of the plant was properly selected. "Seniority for this position was not required to be a controlling factor," he said.

On the first shift Friday, 284 of the plant's 563 hourly production workers were on strike, Allee said.

Meadows, who had joined the strike in sympathy, said it was caused by the company's violating the union contract and is not directed at the worker who was given the promotion, who also is a union member.

The union had tried to make it easy for management to settle the dispute and had offered a compromise, Meadows said. In the past, the union had been able to settle its differences with management, he said.