[ad_1]
At 11 am on Friday morning, General Electric employees in Oberentfelden are invited into the sober function rooms of the Palma Bistro. Here, managers reveal to them in the next few minutes that the location will be closed and their jobs will be greatly reduced. 57 positions should be maintained, 436 are facing the extreme. The procedure has not yet concluded. By the end of the year, it should be clear where exactly gas-insulated switchgear production is relocating. There was talk of France and India, also China and possibly Italy.
The job cuts in Aargau are a shock. This is probably why security personnel provide information to employees. A fight was probably expected. It didn’t get that far. It does not change the fact that the new evaluation came as a surprise to everyone. Because in reality the cancellation of the positions was not planned, but a movement. To Birr, less than 20 kilometers northwest of Oberentfelden. This was decided in mid-2018.
In 2014, GE still had 1,500 employees at Birr; today there are 400
In December 2019, GE sold the site in Oberentfelden to the Suhr-based transportation company Dreier AG. Shortly before, the first planning requests had been submitted to the Birr Township to go ahead with the necessary changes to the factory buildings near the train tracks. In spring, “at the end of April, the beginning of May”, he was able to issue the first permits, recalls René Grütter, mayor who did not support Birr. In July a little later, GE told Oberentfelden employees that they could move to Birr. Two months later everything is different.
In February 2020, the move was postponed because there were many orders. At that time there was no talk of moving. And for Mayor Grütter, too, it all came out of nowhere. He says, “You know, we used to be informed in advance about the big decisions. But the run-up period got shorter and shorter and now we only find out about such decisions in hindsight from the press. “The deal with plant manager Falk-Ingo Jaeger is actually very good, says Grütter. He suspects the GE management has now gagged Jaeger. Otherwise the community would no doubt have been informed in advance. “We have never received such a severe blow to the leg,” he says, disappointed.
The big question now is what consequences these job cuts will have for Birr. When asked, GE emphasized the great importance of the remaining locations in Baden and Birr. With their innovation centers, they would support businesses around the world. At Birr, they are also looking for outside companies to take over the vacant space in the factory halls.
When GE took over the gas turbine business at Birr from Alstom in 2014, around 1,500 people were still working the aisles. Now there are still between 400 and 450, even Grütter cannot say more precisely. By Friday he thought that nearly 1,000 people would soon be back at work in the room, which was built by the BBC between 1960 and 1962.
GE is an “element of uncertainty” but there is hope for Birr
When what was then the largest factory in Europe was completed, Grütter was just starting primary school in Birr. “After the opening of the factory, our community grew rapidly in two years, the number of inhabitants soared from 600 to more than 1,800,” he says. It was a challenge for the life of the people, Grütter even speaks of a kind of commotion. But you know how much Birr benefited from the industry. The BBC was an excellent contributor. Two-thirds of the school buildings were funded by GE’s predecessor company.
The autonomous community’s golden age continued until the BBC merged with the Swedish ASEA in 1988 to form ABB. “There was a first kink,” says Grütter. Then under. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. You no longer expect expansion. But this destination is taken with a certain serenity. GE is no longer as important to Birr as the BBC once was. Despite job cuts in recent years, the community has grown by 300 residents in the last two years. Additionally, more than 80 companies have established themselves in the community in the decades since the advent of the industry at Birr. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises, a number of artisan enterprises.
Trust has suffered from all the changes of direction
There is more to come. The area around the GE factory halls remains the property of ABB. It is part of a development approach in the canton. There the modern industry will be located. Research and development, 24 hour operations. “We anticipate that 3,000 to 3,500 jobs will be created in this area in the next 30 years,” says Grütter.
It remains to be seen whether GE will continue at Birr. For the mayor, the American company is a
Uncertainty factor. He says, “I am very hopeful that, in addition to GE, we will get some more reliable companies in the village.” The trust has undergone all the changes of direction in recent months and years. Even if Grütter can understand that the gas-insulated switchgear business has suffered. According to GE, prices are said to have fallen 40 percent in the last twelve years. And then Corona appeared. Prospects have deteriorated enormously. GE expects orders to decline by 30 percent in 2021.