WAUKESHA- Workers in Waukesha are despairing as a General Electric (GE) plant begins its move to Ontario, Canada. The factory’s 350 floor workers will all lose their jobs. Speaker Paul Ryan, who spent the entire 2016 campaign season supporting a President who ran on a platform of protecting American manufacturing jobs, called the decision “deeply disappointing,” but has no concrete plans to help displaced workers.
Heather Long at WFMZ News reports:
Kenneth Olsen lives in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s district in Wisconsin. He wishes Ryan had been there to see his wife of 42 years slump in her chair and cry when he told her the news: His GE factory job is being eliminated.
The entire GE factory is moving to Canada.
“She’s looking at me, saying, ‘what are we going to do?'” Olsen, a soft-spoken 60-year-old said, pausing to brush away tears as he spoke to CNNMoney. “And I’m sitting there going, ‘I’m not sure.'”
Olsen earns nearly $30 an hour as a dispatcher at the GE Power plant in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The factory churns out big industrial engines. Olsen is the maestro of the welding department, coordinating where workers and parts go. . .
The GE Power plant itself is located in Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s district. He’s a Republican who has been in Congress since 1979 and is a millionaire. But many of GE’s employees live in Speaker Ryan’s district next door.
Among the workers, there’s a feeling that Ryan and Sensenbrenner are out of touch with middle-class life.
Read more at WFMZ News.
