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General Electric wants to cut around 80 jobs at its Baden location. The company will notify its employees this Tuesday morning. The letter is in this newspaper. As of July, General Electric’s workforce in Baden was still around 1,500, according to its own information. 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 impacted by the planned job cuts, the letter continues. No dismantling is planned in engineering or production at Birr.
Interested employees must be offered a “competitive social plan”. In writing, the company tries to spread optimism despite the reduction. For example, employees read that Baden should remain a global competence center for engineering with several technical disciplines.
Baden and Birr remain “important locations”
When asked, GE wrote, “These are difficult decisions that were not taken lightly. The energy market for GE and its competitors remains difficult. Although GE Gas Power has made substantial progress in stabilizing its business in 2019 and 2020, these proposals are necessary to further improve competitiveness in an increasingly demanding industrial environment and to ensure that GE Gas Power is able to respond in the best way. possible to the changing needs of customers can. “
Baden and Birr should remain “very important locations”. They host several global innovation centers. From here, GE conducts research and development beyond Switzerland and Europe. With currently 2,300 employees, GE is one of the largest employers in the canton of Aargau in the future.
Harsh reactions
The reactions of the employees are harsh. “GE’s action is dubious and outrageous,” writes the Syna union in a statement. “Employees are fed up with this unworthy and gradual destruction of GE’s manufacturing capabilities in Switzerland.”
Arbeit Aargau, the umbrella organization for employee representation in the canton, writes: “GE must finally take responsibility and must not constantly carry its mistakes on the shoulders of employees.” GE must take back the downsizing, it requires the umbrella organization.
“We fight for positions”
“That’s about 84 jobs,” says Thomas Bauer, GE Switzerland’s employee representative, in his employer’s fact sheet. This must be prepared for resistance. “We are fighting for positions,” Bauer announced. The final decision on the number of positions will not be available until January 2021, writes GE.
Since the announcement in June 2019 when GE wanted to cut 450 jobs, this is the third job cut in Switzerland. “The situation with constant restructuring is frustrating for people,” says Bauer. “Employees finally want clarity on the management strategy and their future.”
Just a month ago it became known that the company would not be moving the GE Grid Solutions business from Oberentfelden to Birr, but would rather dissolve it. This would cut 436 jobs in 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 1900 if job cuts in Baden became a reality. When the US company took over the energy division of Alstom Power for 9.7 billion Swiss francs on 1 November 2015, it was still 5300. In Baden alone, 4200 people were employed.
GE employees from Baden still have their jobs in the Konnex building in Baden Nord. But this has outgrown GE’s needs. GE’s lease for the Konnex building expires in the spring of 2021. The relocation is imminent: jobs will be relocated to other office buildings in the neighborhood in the coming days and weeks. These are the “Quadro” office building in Brown-Boveri-Strasse, the “Blue Tower” on the railway track and part of the “Duplex” building. Most GE employees currently work from home due to the corona pandemic.
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