GE’s sprawling Appliance Park production complex
A tentative offer was rejected in December
YSN Staff
Workers at GE Appliances’ main Appliance Park manufacturing complex in Louisville, Ky., have agreed to a new four-year contract that brings them higher pay and lower health insurance deductibles.
After rejecting a tentative offer in December, the facility’s approximately 5,000 union workers overwhelming ratified the new labor agreement, Assembly Magazine reported, which represents an investment of about $142 million over the course of the contract.
Among its provisions, the new deal cuts healthcare deductibles by about 60% and creates pathways to career advancement that can lead to annual pay increases, along with added salary boosts on employees’ one-, five- and 10-year anniversaries.
A Rising Tide
According to Dino Driskell, president of IUE-CWA Local 83761 and a GE maintenance technician, the new contract benefits all GE workers, including newcomers and veterans.
“Trying to equally distribute what we can negotiate is hard…but everybody is getting contractual wage increases every year and that’s something we can continue to build on,” he said.
The terms were essentially unchanged from last year’s tentative agreement, which had been endorsed by the union and were more fully explained before last month’s vote, the local Courier-Journal reported.
In a statement to the newspaper, GE spokesperson Julie Wood described the contract as “a great wage and benefits package that will allow us to attract and retain the best talent in Louisville … We appreciate our employees’ ongoing commitment to our business and the work they do every day to support our customers.”
