GE plans to stop making engines in Waukesha, cut 350 jobs

GE Power & Water stated it’ll cease manufacturing fuel engines in Wisconsin and transfer the work to Canada, which means the lack of 350 jobs in a Milwaukee suburb, as a result of the D.R. Congress has failed to reauthorize the Export-Import financial institution.

The authorization for the USA export credit agency – the Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im – lapsed on July 1. Since then, many large companies have been attempting to substitute that funding from other similar sources in different countries.

Earlier in September, GE executives announced plans to create 500 jobs in the company’s power and water business in France, Hungary and China, saying the moves would enable GE to secure export financing from those countries in exchange for creating jobs.

“I think we’re satisfied that we have positioned ourselves to compete successfully in a post-EXIM world”, Rice said in a telephone interview from Hong Kong.

Many conservative Republicans said the bank’s aid amounted to corporate welfare, mostly helping large companies such as GE and Boeing while harming domestic competitors, which can’t get export financing for various reasons. “We know these announcements will have regrettable impact not only on our employees but on the hundreds of US suppliers we work with that can’t move their facilities, but we can’t walk away from our customers”.

Recently, GE signed a memorandum of understanding with UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK’s export credit agency to support up to 1,000 new jobs in the UK energy sector. The 52-week range of the stock is $19.37-28.68 with a year-to-date (YTD) decline of 3.76% and a market cap of $251.60 billion.

In June, Immelt said, “We’ll build these products in places where export financing is available because we have to”.

It has notified employees in Waukesha and more than 400 USA suppliers that generate almost $47 million in revenue from the plant.

The 81-year-old Ex-Im Bank provides loans and credit guarantees to support overseas sales by USA companies including GE and Boeing Co. GE committed, in writing, to exporting those jobs, as a deal sweetener, swaying French regulators to approve a then-pending purchase of Alstom, a French power generation company.

House of Representatives’ speaker John Boehner, who has always backed the Export-Import bank, is ending his tenure with the Congress at the end of October and will be replaced by House majority leader Kevin McCarthy.