Friday, January 18, 2008

GE Scores Abroad

An unfortunate headline, from Yahoo Finance:
General Electric reported a 4 percent rise in quarterly profits, to $6.7 billion, meeting analysts' forecasts. (AP in Yahoo! Finance) GE -- the second-largest U.S. company by market capitalization, after Exxon Mobil -- said that more than half of its revenue now comes from outside the U.S., helping protect it from the domestic economic slowdown.

And from Screw That Bulb, the blog of the Communications Workers of America (AFL-CIO):

Screw That Bulb: How GE Is Plugging Into the Green Movement to Move Jobs and Advanced Technology to China
Save the environment … or save a U.S. job? That’s the choice General Electric is forcing on U.S. consumers and its own workers.
GE is promoting new, energy saving light bulbs known as compact fluorescents, or CFLs. These bulbs last longer and use less energy than the typical incandescent bulbs found in most U.S. homes – but can cost up to 10 times the price.

GE is asking consumers and its employees to sign a pledge to “go green” and start purchasing the CFL light bulbs, which are imported from China. The problem is that each pledge leads to the loss of jobs in U.S. lighting plants. GE is actually asking workers in its lighting plants to pledge to put themselves out of a job!>>>MORE

There are approximately four billion incandescent bulbs to be replaced in the U.S.