Light bulb factory closes; End of era for U.S. means more jobs overseas

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post

Light bulb factory closes; End of era for U.S. means more jobs overseas

By Peter Whoriskey
Wednesday, September 8, 2010; 3:06 AM

WINCHESTER, VA. - The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.

The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs.

"Now what're we going to do?" said Toby Savolainen, 49, who like many others worked for decades at the factory, making bulbs now deemed wasteful.

During the recession, political and business leaders have held out the promise that American advances, particularly in green technology, might stem the decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. But as the lighting industry shows, even when the government pushes companies toward environmental innovations and Americans come up with them, the manufacture of the next generation technology can still end up overseas.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html?wpisrc=nl_most

[onethatcares]

1. and they can't make cfls?

wtf is wrong with this country? We used to be able to do anything with anything. I guess companies like GE just don't give a rats' ass about Americans and their jobs.

Tax the bastards that send our jobs overseas, tax the hell out of them with import tariffs

[Lightning Count]

3. Due to pollution controls.

Mercury is used in CFL's. Making them here would be cost-prohibitive. They are willing to poison another country though.

[Tesha]

33. Somehow, I just don't believe you.

While I haven't looked at the packaging lately,
I suspect one can still find Mercury Vapor lamps,
Metal Halide lamps, High Pressure Sodium lamps,
and ordinary linear Fluorescent lamps still made
in the United States and they all use mercury.

The plant is closing because the entire world
is phasing out conventional incandescent light
bulbs and that's what this plant made.

There aren't too many buggy whip plants still
operating either.

One could ask why they can't retool the plant,
but perhaps GE already has sufficient CFL
capacity.

Tesha

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. we lowered out electric bill

noticeably by shifting to CFLs in each lamp and light.

GE should be doing something, like, retraining, alternate use. After all, they are the ones that kept ancient technology afloat longer than necessary or reasonable. In order to make the great incandescents that GE did, they had a highly trained, highly motivated, excellent work force - and in any industry, that is a plus.

If you'd like, we can go back to gas piping and gas lamps on street corners, with lamplighters having the highest fatality rates outside of a war zone.

[superconnected]

15. GE is a big company that makes all kinds of stuff - they're just closing their incandescent bulb

plant. They'll still make household appliances.

Sad for the workers but it is progress.

[alc]

17. change the tax laws

Index capital gains by # US jobs created/lost while stock or options are held. Make it a BIG variation like 5% if they create jobs and 80% if they loose jobs. If lower taxes really create a significant number of jobs, they can get 5% tax and everyone should be happy. And any CEO getting lots of stock options is going to really want to create jobs since those options are worth almost nothing if they ship jobs overseas.

There are all sorts of attacks around here when someone claims that taxes and regulations are an issue for job creation. Cost of labor is also significant but taxes and regulations are also an issue. I've started and joined a number of startups (that all failed and I've never made over $75k/year in them or cached out for anything). Taxes and tax paperwork took a lot of money and time we could have used to have a better chance of succeeding. The same with many regulations. And it gets worse as you get bigger (most of my career has been in big companies with breaks to start my own but 2 startups grew from under 10 to 40+ and 100+ employees).

Hopefully people can see that taxes and regulations are at least a small incentive to move jobs to more appealing countries or hire contractors instead of permanent employees. Then we can have a debate on what to do about it. Solutions may be indexed capital gains, or tariffs, or streamlining the paperwork, or hopefully someone smarter will come up with a better out-of-the-box solution. But simply stating that taxes and regulations have no impact is no better than saying they do and either side needs to provide evidence. Jobs going overseas should provide some evidence even though CEOs do exaggerate the impact of taxes and regs and fail to mention the lower cost of labor.

[Sanity Claws]

2. US companies refuse to invest in the US

That's the real story

GE is manufacturing the new bulbs but REFUSED to do the manufacturing here. Instead it spent mega bucks on building plants overseas. That's the real story -- US companies that don't believe in the US. And a tax structure and trade policy that facilitates such behavior.

[Lightning Count]

4. Due to pollution controls.

Mercury is used in CFL's. Making them here would be cost-prohibitive. They are willing to poison another country though.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

22. you WANT mercury fumes released here? cool.

The solution is a global set of rules, applicable EVERYWHERE, with reasonable, decent, livable pollution standards for every location.

[Lightning Count]

23. All we need then is one world government. nt

[bossy22]

5. i suggest you read the article in its whole

the reason the factor is closing down is not because of outsourcing perse but that the product will soon be "outlawed". If you don't have demand you don't have supply

[onethatcares]

8. I understand that incandescents will be phased out

but I'm amazed that GE would just move it all off shore to avoid complying with enviromental laws.

No wonder cancers are rampant in our country.

[Lightning Count]

12. That doesn't jive. nt

[Sanity Claws]

16. You don't understand

Everyone knew that the incandescent bulb was being phased out. GE knew it and decided to build factories to manufacture them abroad rather than here.

[Dappleganger]

6. That is sad. There used to be quite a few manufacturing plants up and down the I81 corridor...

my husband's plant was shut down as well, back in 1999. A plant I used to work at in Edinburg, VA was shut down as well. Quite often those manufacturing jobs were the best paying jobs a person in that area could find which was steady work, often with overtime and full benefits. One by one the businesses shut them down and moved them to Mexico, Ireland, China or just closed them completely.

[judesedit]

7. Find out what companies GE owns and don't buy any of their products

Simple as that. And that goes for all of the companies that have primarily taken their companies offshore. Buy only products made in the U.S.A. You may have to pay a little more, you may not. Reason being...American companies offer benefits to their employees, where companies offshore do not. You may have to look a little harder, you may not. Seems worth it to me. Besides we are funding China's military with our huge demands and purchase of their "cheap"???? stuff. Believe me. China accepts as little of ours as possible. That's why Obama's trying to level the playing field by imposing tariffs. Wake up. America! Power to the people. Demand all cars be built here at home for a reasonable price and run on anything but petroleum. They try to pretend to work toward a greener and cleaner environment when they refuse to change their product. Just throwing us tidbits here and there. They laugh all the way to the bank.

[The Northerner]

9. I really cannot believe what I read...

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.

Can Congress actually BAN certain light bulbs?

Whose idea was this?

[Lightning Count]

13. Cannot believe you were not aware of this. nt

[jberryhill]

14. Just like the leaded gasoline

Congress didn't ban any light bulbs, though.

Return with us now, to the thrilling days of 2007, when you missed the story:

"Under the measure, all light bulbs must use 25% to 30% less energy than today's products by 2012 to 2014. The phase-in will start with 100-watt bulbs in 2012 and end with 40-watt bulbs in 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70% more efficient.

,,,

The new rules are expected to save consumers $40 billion in energy and other costs from 2012 to 2030, avoid construction of 14 coal-fired power plants, and cut global-warming emissions by at least 51 million tons of carbon annually, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy."

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/eco-friendly/congress-incandescent-light-bulbs-ban-461217#ixzz0yyJeLh8V

[Nihil]

29. Yeah, what about all those poor bastards in the asbestos business too?

Buggy whip manufacturers feel the same way!

And who the hell thought that banning child labour was a good idea?

:eyes:

[notesdev]

32. Welcome to my world

Apparently you and I are the only ones here who have a problem with Congress outlawing lightbulbs.

What the hell business is it of theirs? That we are being forced to bring extremely hazardous materials into our homes in the name of the environment is perverse, and as we can see here, is destructive to the economy.

Everyone here is commenting about the mean ol' companies, this is fucked up. A company can't do a damn thing if it's product is outlawed!

In the middle of a Depression what kind of idiot thinks it's a good idea to throw people out of legitimate work? Even if one is hugely concerned about global warming, the impact of banning incandescents is negligible, and the environmental (not to mention human) damage from the mercury in their manufacture is substantial!

[Blue_Tires]

10. I love how the employees have more hate

against EVUL BIG GUMMITT for daring to outlaw old, inefficient tech than their parent company -- Big, powerful GE who sat on innovation even with a paradigm shift on the horizon only to copycat someone else's model in a dirt cheap labor pool...


For all the pundits and media constantly asking Congress and the White House "Where are the jobs?!?!?!!" Someone needs to start taking a look the corporate CEOs...

And I know it's been said before, but Tom Friedman and the other assclowns who flunked econ from some years back cheerleading how American goods made cheap in Asia and India was going to make everyone's life better need to answer for this...

[peace13]

18. Why does Mister Obama send all of our jobs oversees?

That is the comment that I overheard today at the assisted living center. I had to get on line to see what all the excitement was about. What a surprise, Congress 2007 is the culprit here. That and lazy corps.

[Kringle]

27. looks likely that Congress {the House} will flip this year

after 4 years of Dem rule

[Nihil]

28. Obama didn't and neither did Congress (2010 or 2007).

GE management are the only people to blame for "sending (their) jobs overseas".

If people are too stupid to accept that - and put blame where it
is due - then tough: they're too stupid to have a job.

[Sherman A1]

19. I love CFL's but they are not always the best choice

At work in our big freezers (grocery store backroom) we tried them and had to switch back to incandescents. When the doors are closed the lights are off and CFL's take far too long to warm up and provide light. It is both an issue of wasted time and safety.

[onethatcares]

20. couldn't l.e.d.s work in that situation?

L.E.D.s provide a great amount of light without the warm up time. They also save on energy consumption.

[SlipperySlope]

21. Quality 60W LED replacement bulbs are currently around $80-$100 each.

The LED technology just isn't there yet as an affordable incandescent replacement, although I strongly believe within a decade it will be.

CFLs suck. I hate them.

For now, I'm just stocking up a multiple-year supply of incandescent bulbs. I hope to completely skip CFLs and just use incandescents until LEDs are ready.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

24. I LOVE cfl bulbs.

For safety, dogs, theft protection, we left a 45 watt CFL bulb on. (it weighed in at 8 watts) The thing lasted 3 years.

I have a couple of LED lights, too. the first one broke down a month after installation.

[SlipperySlope]

25. YMMV

I know they work for some people.

I've installed dimmers on many of the light fixtures in our house. CFLs aren't compatible with dimmers (it greatly shortens their life). Even if you buy the so-called "dimmable" CFLs, they flicker and turn-off at the low-end of the dimmable range.

Some of our lights are on timers. Also not compatible with CFLs.

Some of our lights are on motion detectors. Also not compatible with CFLs.

The dimmers, timers, and motion detectors were all installed to help reduce our energy usage, but none of them work well with CFLs.

Even in fixtures where I don't have a funky controller...

CFLs burn out prematurely if they are installed base-up.

CFLs burn out prematurely if they are installed in an enclosed fixture without ventilation.

CFLs don't start-up well outdoors in cold weather.

And then there is the whole mercury hazard.

I just can't stand CFLs. I gave them an honest try and they just wasted my money, gave off pathetic light, and burned out too soon.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

26. I agree with your complaints, trust me

It is simply a matter of technology catching up with technology.

[Owl]

30. I agree with you. CFL's croak quickly if not installed open-air base-up.

CFL's are lousy in enclosed ceiling fixtures, though I've found they work there if you keep the wattage low and don't populate all the sockets of the fixture; makes for crummy lighting.

[Heywood J]

31. I'm not sure what CFLs the two of you are buying, but

I have about 15 of them installed in enclosed ceiling fixtures, on timers, and in motion sensors. Three quarters of them are two years old, the rest are one year old, and none have burnt out.

To be fair, I do agree about the issues with the cold weather, though. I don't put them outside from October to March for that reason. Performance also seems to vary greatly depending on brand, price, and model. My older ones are Globe, the newer ones are store-branded Ikea, but all came from Canada.

[Tesha]

35. Wow -- so many wrong "facts" in one post.

> I've installed dimmers on many of the light fixtures in
> our house. CFLs aren't compatible with dimmers (it greatly
> shortens their life).

We have a wide variety of dimmable CFLs (of both
the "conventional" kind and the CCFL kind) in
our house and they work fine and last as expected.
You're right that they don't dim down to "extinction"
but they dim quite far and the CCFL ones dim amazingly
far.


> Some of our lights are on timers. Also not compatible
> with CFLs.

'Depends on the timer. Conventional mechanical timers
work fine. X-10 works fine for the most part (although
sometimes you need the kind of X-10 controller with
a "neutral" connection). Some electronic timers may
not work.


> CFLs burn out prematurely if they are installed base-up.

Not if the fixture provides adequate ventilation.
We operate quite a few of our base-up in ceiling
"pot" fixtures. And you'll be replacing an "n Watt"
incandescent with a CFL that has (roughly) a third
of the wattage meaning the heat load is lower.


> CFLs don't start-up well outdoors in cold weather.

As in every other point you raised, your mileage
differs from ours.


> And then there is the whole mercury hazard.

How much mercury do you figure is in a CFL?
How much do you figure is in a ton of coal burned
at your upwind power plant?


> gave off pathetic light,

Try a higher-wattage CFL. Try a "Bright White"
one instead of the "2300K" lamps. But it sounds
like you've made up your mind to hate them.

Tesha

[Tesha]

34. Happily, quartz halogen lamps will still be available for a while.

And some even-higher-efficiency incandescent
lamps (using infrared-reflective coating)
are also showing promise.

And soon, LED lamps will be more-affordable.

Tesha

[Synicus Maximus]

36. Also desposal of the new bulbs can be a pain.

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/wastetypes/universal/lamps/faqs.htm#10


What should I do with a CFL or other fluorescent light bulb after it has burned out?

Some states may require households to recycle their mercury-containing light bulbs after they burn out. In addition, EPA strongly encourages the recycling of all CFLs and other fluorescent light bulbs. CFLs or other fluorescent light bulbs that are discarded in the trash will break and some mercury will be released into the environment. Recycling these light bulbs will reduce the chance that mercury ends up in the environment. Household hazardous waste collections usually accept these light bulbs. For information about state-specific requirements, please contact your state or local environmental regulatory agency. Find out what household hazardous waste collection and recycling programs are available in your area by visiting Where You Live or Earth911.org. Exit EPA

If your state or local environmental regulatory agency offers no other disposal options except your household garbage, place the fluorescent light bulb in a plastic bag and seal it before putting it in the trash. If your waste agency incinerates its garbage, you should search a wider geographic area for proper disposal options. Never send a fluorescent light bulb or any other mercury-containing product to an incinerator