General Electric has rejected cost-cutting proposals and will close the side-by-side refrigerator plant on Bloomington's west side by the end of next year, a newspaper reports today.
Employees were notified Monday, the Herald-Times reports.
GE announced the pending shutdown of the 896-employee plant in Southern Indiana in January.
Bloomington has been bracing for a hit.
While Indiana University's 25,000-student campus buoys the city, a $400 million annual factory payroll sustains 7,500 blue-collar workers whose families make up a large share of the community of 70,000.
GE had said the union could save the factory, which lost $45 million last year, by coming up with a money-saving plan within 60 days to keep open the Bloomington landmark.
The 1-million-square foot plant produces a side-by-side refrigerator. Its sales are in decline while material costs have climbed.
“A troubling day, knowing that the end will definitely be coming,” Bill Mitchell, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2249, told the newspaper. “We tried to do everything we possibly could to stay open. I guess it’s frustrating. A number of ideas this membership has been trying for the last few years to keep this thing going — made sacrifices, job elimination.”
The plant has been in operation for four decades. Its closure will affect 884 current employees: 826 hourly and 58 salaried.
Tomato wrote:
60 days to make a money saving plan to save 884 jobs and they failed to do it? Japanese cars are made in the US Btw. But anyway, plants close because companies set goals and the local workers cant organize to meet those goals, only organizing to demand more money for lower production. This area is notorious for low production reports, seems like people have lots of other things that are more important than doing their work, such as making sure a black woman cant pass you lest you cough, or making sure a forign student cant live out their education in one apartment. You cant have both these activities and jobs too, so you have to make a choice.
