The ultimate hypocrisy!
We all think of General Electric as the all American company. That company has provided Americans with everything electric from vacuum cleaners to radios and television sets. We still have a 13” color television in the kitchen that won’t die. The company was started by Thomas Edison. Remember President Ronald Reagan was a television spokesperson for GE bef
ore he entered politics.
That is all changed now. The company has a reported 287,000 employees around the world. It has expanded to manufacturing jet engines for aircraft to building nuclear electrical generating facilities. After the tsunami in Japan it became public that the six reactors in the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant had been designed by General Electric.
Big American companies that we all thought were loyal Americans have rapidly shifted their workforces abroad. Calling Time Warner for aid with my Wi-Fi system I learned that the nice lady helping me was located in Manila, Philippines. She had perfect English.
When did offshoring become so prevalent? The trend began in earnest in the late 1970s at large manufacturers such as General Electric. GE’s then CEO, Jack Welch, who was widely respected by other corporate chieftains, argued that public corporations owe their primary allegiance to stockholders not employees. Therefore, Welch said, companies should seek to lower costs and maximize profits by moving operations wherever is cheapest. “Ideally,” Welch said, “you’d have every plant you own on a barge to move with currencies and changes in the economy.” Not only did GE offshore much of its manufacturing, so did its parts suppliers, which were instructed at GE-orchestrated “supplier migration seminars” to “migrate or be out of business.”
President Obama Picks Jeffrey Immelt, GE CEO, To Run New Jobs-Focused Panel . And you thought that Barack Obama was for the American people.
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