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General Electric wants to cut about 80 jobs at the Baden location. The company will inform its employees about this on Tuesday morning. This newspaper has the letter. In July, General Electric’s staff in Baden was, according to its own information, around 1,500. This would reduce the number of employees to around 1,400. A statement from General Electic is pending.
Operations and support functions, such as finance, IT and human relations, are affected by the planned work cut-off, the letter continues. No engineering or production decommissioning is planned at Birr.
A “competitive social plan” will be offered to affected employees. In writing, the company tries to spread optimism despite the reduction. For example, employees read in it that Baden should remain a global competence center for engineering with various technical disciplines.
Baden and Birr are still “important places”
When asked, GE wrote: “These are tough decisions that were not made lightly. The energy market for GE and its competitors remains challenging. Although GE Gas Power made substantial progress in stabilizing its business in 2019 and 2020, these proposals are necessary to further enhance competitiveness in an increasingly demanding industrial environment and to ensure that GE Gas Power can best respond to changing customer needs. can. “
Baden and Birr should remain “very important places”. They host various global innovation centers. From here, GE conducts research and development beyond Switzerland and Europe. With 2,300 employees currently, GE is one of the largest employers in the canton of Aargau in the future.
Harsh reactions
Employee reactions are harsh. “GE’s action is dubious and outrageous,” the Syna union writes in a statement. “Employees are fed up with this gradual and unworthy destruction of GE’s production capabilities in Switzerland.”
Arbeit Aargau, the organization that brings together the workers’ representatives in the canton, writes: “GE must finally take responsibility and must not constantly carry its mistakes on the backs of the employees.” GE must withdraw the downsizing, the umbrella organization demands.
“We fight for positions”
“It’s about 84 jobs,” says Thomas Bauer, a staff representative for GE Switzerland, on his employer’s information sheet. This has to be prepared for resistance. “We are fighting for positions,” Bauer announced. The final decision on the number of seats will not be available before January 2021, writes GE.
Since the announcement in June 2019 when GE wanted to cut 450 jobs, this is the third reduction in jobs in Switzerland. “The constant restructuring situation is frustrating for people,” says Bauer. “Employees finally want clarity on management’s strategy and on their own future.”
Just a month ago it emerged that the company would not move the GE Grid Solutions division from Oberentfelden to Birr, but would dissolve it. This would eliminate 436 jobs at Oberentfelden. In addition, there are the jobs of 126 temporary workers who, according to the unions, will also be eliminated. In total, there is a risk of losing 562 jobs in Oberentfelden.
Five years ago there were 5,300 employees
Across Switzerland, the number of GE employees would drop to around 1,900 if job cuts in Baden were to become a reality. When the American company took over Alstom Power’s energy division for 9.7 billion Swiss francs on November 1, 2015, there were still 5,300. In Baden alone, there were 4,200 people employed.
GE employees in Baden still have their workplaces in the Konnex building in North Baden. But this has become too big for GE’s needs. GE’s lease for the Konnex building expires in spring 2021. The move is imminent: workplaces will be relocated to other office buildings in the neighborhood over the next few days and weeks. These are the “Quadro” office building on Brown-Boveri-Strasse, the “Blue Tower” on the train track and part of the “Duplex” building. The majority of GE employees currently work from home due to the corona pandemic.
