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Laid off after 62 years on the job
SPECIAL REPORT TOP STORY
CASEY: Laid off after 62 years on the job
Roger Journell, 81, was still a teenager when he got hired at GE Power's industrial controls manufacturing plant in Salem. That was Jan. 30, 1957, and his starting wage was $1.42 per hour. But his last day is Friday. He and the rest of the hourly workforce there have been laid off, as their jobs migrate overseas to places like India and China.
By Dan Casey dan.casey@roanoke.com 981-3423 4 hrs ago
The year Roger Journell began working at General Electric in Salem, Elvis Presley scored a hit with “All Shook Up.” The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, beginning the Space Race. And to the horror of New York baseball fans, the Brooklyn Dodgers picked up and moved to Los Angeles.
All that happened in 1957. The Dodgers remain in California, but Elvis and the Soviet Union are relics on history’s junk pile. Nobody can say that about Journell, now 81. He still works at GE.
His last day is Friday. And above all else, this is what he wants the Roanoke Valley to know:
“I am not retiring,” Journell insisted. “I’m being laid off.”
This month, the multinational corporation wraps up a long wind-down at its Salem plant, which opened in 1955 and for decades has provided some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the Roanoke Valley.
For 64 years, those workers, who numbered around 3,000 at the plant’s zenith, built custom industrial controls for huge factories, the military and most recently, for electric power plants. Now their work is being moved overseas, to places like India and China.
....
CASEY: Laid off after 62 years on the job
Roger Journell, 81, was still a teenager when he got hired at GE Power's industrial controls manufacturing plant in Salem. That was Jan. 30, 1957, and his starting wage was $1.42 per hour. But his last day is Friday. He and the rest of the hourly workforce there have been laid off, as their jobs migrate overseas to places like India and China.
By Dan Casey dan.casey@roanoke.com 981-3423 4 hrs ago
The year Roger Journell began working at General Electric in Salem, Elvis Presley scored a hit with “All Shook Up.” The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, beginning the Space Race. And to the horror of New York baseball fans, the Brooklyn Dodgers picked up and moved to Los Angeles.
All that happened in 1957. The Dodgers remain in California, but Elvis and the Soviet Union are relics on history’s junk pile. Nobody can say that about Journell, now 81. He still works at GE.
His last day is Friday. And above all else, this is what he wants the Roanoke Valley to know:
“I am not retiring,” Journell insisted. “I’m being laid off.”
This month, the multinational corporation wraps up a long wind-down at its Salem plant, which opened in 1955 and for decades has provided some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the Roanoke Valley.
For 64 years, those workers, who numbered around 3,000 at the plant’s zenith, built custom industrial controls for huge factories, the military and most recently, for electric power plants. Now their work is being moved overseas, to places like India and China.
....
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