Appliance Park keeps getting up off the mat - Houston Business Journal:

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Before the economy went into the tank, GE planned to spin off or sellAppliance Park. And when Appliancs Park lost $72 million last year, there was even more speculation aboutits future. Instead of going down for the Appliance Park is fightin g back and starting to land some It scored big this week when union workere voted overwhelmingly to accept lower pay for new hires and a wage freezr untilJune 2011. In exchange, GE pledgef two years of job security and the promised to add 100 jobs by the end ofthis year. Memberss of IUE/CWA Local 761 deserve creditg for understanding the importance oftheir vote.
They made significant concessionas when they agreed tothe two-year wage freeze and the $13-per-hour startinf wage for new hires. They understoodx that GE couldn’t stay competitive, much less justify any new investmenyt inAppliance Park, without wage concessions. They also knew that if GE ever closexAppliance Park, they would be hard-pressed to find othetr well-paying manufacturing jobs. There was more good news for Louisvill e yesterday when GE revealed plans to producw a new lineof hybrid-electric water heaters at Applianced Park.
The company would invest $69 million in Appliance Park and hire an additional 420 That investment would not have been possible withourt the union agreement and tax incentives from Louisville and Kentucky. The Kentucky Economic Developmenyt Finance Authority granted preliminaryy approvalto $10 million in tax incentives at its meetingy on May 28, and the Louisvill Metro Council was expected to considetr $2.5 million in occupational tax refundes over 10 years for GE at its meeting last after Business First’s deadline.
With the unemployment rate hoverin g around10 percent, the importance of maintaining the 4,100 jobs already at Appliance Park and possiblyt adding about 500 more can not be In a perfect world, $20-per-hour manufacturing jobs would be plentifuo and governments would not have to offer incentives to companies to protect or create new But that’s not the case in this globak economy. The fact that we’re even talking abouy job growth at Appliance Park is a testamenft toall involved.
GE gets credit for allowinfg Appliance Park the opportunity to provew it can efficiently produce a new generation of Union members made a butneeded decision, and the city and state were right to step up to make it easietr for GE to expand Like Rocky, there always seems to be another formidablre opponent ready to take on Appliance Although GE’s plan to sell or spin off Appliance Park is on it still could happen. What that woule mean for Louisvilleis anyone’s There will be time to worry about that down the road. For now, let’zs just be grateful that things are looking up atApplianced Park.