Former GE CEO Boasts About Union Busting

April 13, 2007

Former GE CEO Jack Welch recommended that companies exploit consumer concern about the environment and proudly boasted about slashing union employment at his old company in a speech April 12 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

The Boston Herald quotes Welch as telling business executives that, “I would try to take advantage of and capitalize on a green movement,” Welch said, “whether I believed in it or not.”

"Companies should make customers feel guilty for not buying products from them that are environmentally friendly, he said," the Herald reporter wrote.

Welch also was quoted as saying he was “really anti-union today," and boasting about cutting unionized employment from 125,000 to 19,000.

This is the second time in about a month that Welch has attacked GE's unionized workers.

The first time, on the Employee Free Choice Act, the CBC called on GE to set the record straight about its vision of the relationship between the company and its unions. So far there has been no response.