By Doug Cunningham

On the first day of contract talks between the IUE-CWA and GE, CWA President Larry Cohen said the middle class is rising up and putting forward a new vision for America – and he asked which side of that line will GE be on? Cohen challenged GE to show leadership on health care and workers rights. Thirteen unions representing 23,000 at GE have formed the Coordinated Bargaining Committee to negotiate with the highly profitable multinational corporation. On the day talks started GE announced the sale of its plastics division to the Saudi Arabian company SABIC for $11.6 billion. GE employs more than 10,000 workers in its plastics division. GE says the Saudi Arabian company has a history of investing in its acquired companies and in the people who work there. SABIC says it plans no job cuts and plans to grow the business globally. GE’s plastics division grew directly from Thomas Edison’s experiments with plastic filaments for light bulbs.