ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210105
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
Melissa Beckner left a good job at one Salem factory less than a year ago to take a better job at General Electric Co.'s Industrial Systems plant, also in Salem.
"Don't hire me if you're going to lay me off," Beckner said she told GE. She was guaranteed, Beckner said, that she would have a job for at least three years and, better than that, was told that the plant had enough work to keep it busy for five years.
Monday, however, GE managers told the Roanoke County woman, a sheet-metal worker on the plant's night shift, that she was one of 167 blue-collar employees who will be laid off at the end of this week. The layoff will last, GE said, as long as there's an imbalance between orders for the plant's industrial controls and the number of workers needed to produce them - possibly until midyear.
In addition to the 167 indefinite layoffs, GE said that roughly another 20 workers have volunteered to take temporary layoffs through March. The company expects between 5 and 10 of the 167 layoffs will be covered by workers who take early retirement.
GE's production workers, who make up less than half of all employees at the Salem plant, just returned Monday from a mandatory two-week vacation. The vacation shutdown is normally held in the summer but was moved forward this year because of the lack of work, saving the company from having to make an additional 100 layoffs, GE said.
In a statement released to the media, Ken Benson, the plant's production manager, said the plant's long-range outlook is positive. But the current severe imbalance between orders and work force means GE doesn't have enough work to keep the plant fully employed.
"To remain competitive and win future business, we have to maintain prices that are competitive with many world-class producers," Benson said. "We simply can't do that with significantly more people than are needed to manufacture the orders we have in the factory."
Plant management said it was optimistic that most of the laid-off workers could be recalled by the end of June, but some could be called back before that. Significant efforts are under way, the company said, to get work to the factory floor that would result in some recalls as early as next month.
Laid-off workers with at least one year's service are eligible for GE's severance pay and benefit plan, the company said. Those with at least three years' service get free medical benefits for up to a year, and those with less service can maintain their benefits by paying their normal share of the premium. GE also provides education and training aid. Those with less than a year get some assistance, as well.
The Salem plant is part of the GE Motors & Industrial Systems division. It makes drives, controls and automation systems for industrial and utility plants worldwide. The plant is one of Salem's top employers and top-five taxpayers. The plant, not including equipment, and the 75.4 acres it occupies are valued at well over $9 million.
Joe Yates, Salem's economic development director, said any layoff is a matter of concern but the layoff at the Salem plant has to be kept in perspective with the type of custom-design and manufacturing business it's involved in. GE management hasn't asked the city for any help, and he's not sure what the city could offer, Yates said, adding that the city would certainly listen to anything GE had to say.
The plant, which has added more than 200 production workers in the past three years, will be left with roughly 730 after this layoff. None of the plant's additional 1,100 salaried workers - engineers, sales people and support staff - was caught up in the layoff.
Michael Payne, who will lose his job as a painter on the night shift, said the fact that no white-collar workers were laid off is a good sign, meaning that they are busy getting work ready for the production floor.
Payne, 31 and married with a child, has worked at the plant for only nine months. He said he is not overly concerned about the layoff because his wife works and he has construction skills to fall back on.
The plant's assembly line was busy until December, Payne said, when things slowed down as older workers in the assembly area took unused vacation days. But Payne and other workers said rumors inside the plant and other things over the past few weeks had suggested that a layoff might be a possibility.
One woman, another short-timer at the plant, said the forced vacation this month served as a warning that a layoff might be coming.
This weekend will mark the third time she has been laid off from a good manufacturing job since transferring to Roanoke from California four years ago. She is married and has three children. Her husband, a mechanic, is out of work.
"I hope to God we will be called back soon," said the woman, who asked her name not be used. Like other workers to be laid off, she makes about $16 an hour, with a generous benefits package.
Although the woman questioned whether GE had tried hard enough to find work for the plant, she seemed not to blame the company for her situation. "There's nothing to do right now," she said. "You can't pay people not to do anything."
Beckner, who is 31 and single, said she never would have left her previous job if she had known the layoff was coming. She said she recently bought a used car but is not in bad shape financially.
She will try to find another job but said she knows that could be hard here in the Roanoke Valley.
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY STAFF. Melissa Beckner of Roanoke County isby CNBone of 167 workers who returned to GE after forced vacations, only
to be laid off. color. KEYWORDS: JOBCHEK