GE to close Bridgeville lighting glass plant
Changes in the lighting industry will soon bring an end to the General Electric Lighting Glass Plant in Bridgeville, which has been a fixture there for nearly 100 years.
GE Lighting this month notified employees of its intent to close the plant, which employs 60 people.
The closure is subject to a 60-day bargaining review period, at the request of the local union. Workers at the Bridgeville plant are represented by IUE-CWA Local 88640.
If the union agrees, the company will phase out the plant's operations by the end of August 2017, according to GE spokeswoman Alicia Gauer.
Eric Dejohn, president of IUE-CWA Local 88640, said there would be no point in trying to offer cost-saving alternatives that might persudade GE to keep the plant open. It is outdated and only capable of producing traditional lighting products that are being replaced by more energy-efficient operations, he said.
“We'd have to get a whole new product line in there,” Dejohn said.
Dejohn and the company both estimated that more than three-quarters of workers will qualify for early retirement and begin collecting their pension benefits.
In a statement, the company blamed the shift away from incandescent, halogen and specialty linear fluorescent lamps in the past decade.
A 2007 federal law set energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. Common household light bulbs that traditionally used between 40 and 100 watts had to meet the efficiency requirements by 2014.
GE's revenue from traditional incandescent and fluorescent lights has been declining as the government pushed for a phasing-out of the bulbs and consumers opted for more energy-efficient options, such as LED lights.
The Fairfield, Conn.-based industrial conglomerate said last month that sales of traditional lighting dropped 23 percent in the April-June quarter. Lighting sales are reported as part of GE's Industrial division, which includes the company's appliances business that was sold to Haier of China in June. The industrial segment reported a 25 percent drop in total sales to $1.7 billion in the quarter and a 42 percent decline in profit to $96 million.
GE said the Bridgeville facility is operating 80 percent below capacity.
The plant opened in 1907 under the ownership of the J.B. Higbee Co. before GE bought it in 1918. By 1935, the Great Depression forced operations to cease, and production was shifted to Niles, Ohio. Three years later, the Bridgeville plant reopened and has been in operation since.
Staff writer Alex Nixon contributed. Jim Spezialetti is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-388-5805 or jspezialetti@tribweb.com.
