Peninsula In Passage

Jimmy Stafford was fresh from the Army when he joined the GE assembly line in 1966. He remembers - GE was about being the best, the best product, the best TV. If the plant had not closed 80% of the people working there would still be there – but moving slower since we’d all be a lot older, I was a child of the 60’s, had long hair, drove a 55 Cadillac limo and played in a couple rock bands,” he remembers. “At GE I got a work ethic and a lot of friends. We were Family and non-union because we didn’t need a union – GE was that good to us. When rumors of the closing started I grabbed what jobs I could to hang on there and in the end was supervisor of the large parts stockroom. In September 1986, on the final day, I felt lost. “When I first met Jimmy I thought he was a hippie,” says Jerry Battle of his friend Stafford. Battle started working in the maintenance department in the plant’s early years. He says - I heeded the GE statement that said “If there is any job you know you can do, apply for it,” So I did and talked my way into a job as production follower, then into stockroom, then as a pilot factory coordinator, then a troubleshooter. The plant closing rumors went on for two years until it closed down November of ‘86 and I was just five years short of retirement. It was like a ton of rocks coming down on everybody – all we knew were televisions. But they gave everyone a good reference and a chance to take classes and be retrained. GE had been one of the highest paying employers around - even with the shipyards. According to the GE TV News “We are Family,”Tidewater, Virginia, newsletter, on Nov 30, 1984, the average combined wage and benefits rate for Portsmouth hourly-paid employees was over $13.50 an hour. A March 1, 1985, issue noted 958 injuries suffered by Portsmouth GE employees in 1984 – with over half, 52%, injuries to hands and/or fingers. Plant management undertook studies of ergonomic tools and station layouts. The March 22, 1985, edition mentions layoff, temporary and permanent, because of over stocked inventory in 25 inch TVs, price competition, Korean manufacturers’ competition and public demand for table tap rather than console models. In the October 25, 1985, issue Jacques A. Robinson, general manager of GE`s consumer-electronics business, said the plant would close in August, 1986. The last of its employees were transferred, took early retirement or were laid off in 1986. It was the end of an era. City officials worked with GE to seek another use for the facility that GE had put on the market and almost sold to Dominion Resources. In June, 1990, GE announced that it would spend $80 million to re open its Suffolk plant as a commercial aircraft engine repair and maintenance center employing 500 people

Top left: Joan Jones Above: Jerry Battle Left: Jimmy Stafford Below: Richard Tillett

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