Read our editorial on the significance of strikes here.
On August 28, over 600 Aerospace workers in Evendale, Ohio and Erlanger, Kentucky began an ongoing strike against the arms manufacture monopoly GE after the company failed to present a contract proposal before the previous contract expired.
As the strike entered its second week, the United Auto Workers union (UAW), who represents the striking workers, filed an unfair labor practice charge against the company for falsely announcing on September 1 that they had offered a “comprehensive package proposal” for workers to vote on prior to the contract expiration. UAW President Shawn Fain stated last Thursday that GE Aerospace did not offer any complete deals and that they had instead walked away from the negotiating table hours before the contract expired.
According to the union, striking workers are demanding lower health care costs, job security, and more time off. The arms manufacture monopoly offered an increase of health insurance premiums by 18% over the next three years. UAW states that the total health care costs for workers on average have experienced a surge of 36% over the span of the last contract and estimates that it will increase by 40% over the duration of the next contract due to the premium increase. One worker told local monopoly media that he currently pays around $10,000 to $12,000 annually in health insurance costs for his family of three. With the meager wage increases that the monopoly is pushing, increasing health care costs and inflation amount to real wage decreases for most workers.
Last year, General Electric split into three companies – GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare, and GE Vernova – in an attempt to recover declining profits. The company has laid off 25% of its global workforce over the past few years as part of and in addition to these undertakings, including the layoff of almost half of the workers at a warehouse in New York earlier this year. These cuts come as part of the general economic crisis, with imperialists pursuing layoffs, wage decreases, and tempo increases to push the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers.
The GE Aerospace strike is part of an ongoing wave of strikes at arms manufacture monopolies, as US imperialism aggressively increases its weapons spending and continues its genocidal campaigns and aggression abroad. The Evendale plant is the primary producer of GE Aerospace LM2500 engines, which powers over a third of all US Navy and Coast Guard ships, including the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that have been deployed to intercept missiles launched by Iranian forces and Ansar Allah against Israel since 2023. The US Navy has also recently deployed destroyers to the coast of Venezuela to intimidate the oppressed country.
The 165 striking workers at the Erlanger distribution center operate 73% of the monopoly’s flow of engine parts globally. GE Aerospace engines power almost two-thirds of US Air Force aircraft, including the F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, engines for which the monopoly is in a $5 billion contract with the US Air Force since this year. The continuing strike wave at arms monopolies shows that the imperialists are beset on all sides, faced with military defeats by the oppressed peoples and nations abroad and worker strikes at home.
Photo: GE Aerospace workers organized with UAW go on strike. Retrieved from UAW
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