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16 June, 2025IndustriALL US affiliate IUE-CWA has opened the national bargaining round with GE Aerospace, after it was split into a standalone company following General Electric’s (GE) major restructuring. As GE Aerospace expands its global operations and supply chains, the union recognizes the need to build international solidarity to counteract transnational corporate strategies and protect workers’ interests worldwide, and invited IndustriALL to the opening of the negotiations.
GE Aerospace is a major player in the industry with around 53,000 workers in more than 20 countries, 28,000 of which in the USA. The company is particularly known as an important engine manufacturer, among others, in a joint venture with the French aerospace supplier Safran, an IndustriALL’s GFA partner.
IUE international president Carl Kennebrew says:
“The company uses its worldwide supply network to shift work from one plant to another, often to non-union facilities and without proper consultation and without taking into account the social implications for workers.”
This is one reason why IUE-CWA has reached out to other unions and is intensifying their international relations.
Matteo Colombi, IUE senior strategic research associate says:
“If the company goes global, we go global too and by sharing information, we are in a good position to network and to defend workers’ rights and decent pay and working conditions in the US but also in all the other locations around the globe.”
The IUE bargaining team, representing more than 2,000 workers in the USA, are continuing to fight for the same items as in the past: safeguarding jobs, securing new investments, proper health and safety and making sure the members earn decent wages, are provided with an affordable and quality health care and a decent and reliable pension scheme.
Jerry Carney, IUE’s chief negotiator says:
“GE Aerospace is a highly profitable company and workers deserve to be treated with dignity, which includes new products that ensure a reliable outlook into the future.”
One of IndustriALL’s core activity is to build and support company-based networks bringing together trade unionists from around the world, including GE.
IndustriALL Aerospace director, Georg Leutert, says:
“We will of course adapt our global GE network to the new company structure and make sure the aerospace workers will work together even closer going forward. A first meeting is planned in the second half of 2025.”
Laura Hagan, IUE CWA’s international secretary says:
“Our initiative to invite IndustriALL to the opening ceremony of national bargaining with a large multinational company is innovative and far more than a symbolic act. It sends a clear message: We have to break out of the logic of competition even across borders and strengthen solidarity to the benefit of all.”