Saturday, April 5, 2014

Generous Electric

Believe it or not, that's what they used to call GE. Obviously that was many years before the unctuous a-hole Immelt was lecturing the lads and lassies about how to make do with less.

That's what it's about these days. Y'all better adjust your expectations, 'cause if you don't this factory is heading to (PICK ONE) China, Mexico, Bulgaria, anywhere we can successfully bully the workers.

When my forbears left a broken Europe, GE was one of their favorite destinations. Uncle Horst, who had got his millwright ticket in Switzerland, was the first of the immediate family to decamp to the new world, and it was to take a job at the new GE plant in Guelph circa 1955.

He became a welding inspector there. His brother Werner soon followed. Werner went on to several welding gigs before breaking out to become one of the world's leading scholars of reformation history.

Numerous relations followed. I served time at GE, as did two of my three brothers. Innumerable nephews did too. Uncle Horst paved the way for at least two dozen family members to get some serious stuff on their resumes.

And then GE morphed into Westinghouse which morphed into ABB which eventually closed the plant but miraculously opened one in Mexico!

And that miracle was the result of the folks in Ottawa pushing "free trade" on those of us who were supposedly going to benefit from it.

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