My boss, Jim Hoffa, has a great idea: Make corporations sign a pledge of allegiance to American workers. Make them promise not to close any more factories.
Hoffa went on The Ed Show last night and said it's time to embarass these corporate titans into reinvesting in America. He thinks if a CEO is named to a White House panel to create jobs, he should at least promise not to send any more jobs overseas. Hoffa said,
If you want to be part of the solution, let's start keeping jobs in America, let's start bringing jobs back.President Obama recently named Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, to his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Less than half of GE’s workers are in the U.S. and less than half of its revenues come from its operations in the U.S. Oh, and GE, which runs a huge shadow bank called GE Capital, got a gigantic taxpayer bailout as a result of the financial crisis.
The company has closed 29 plants in the U.S. It used to employ 16,000 workers at its aviation plant in Lynn, Mass. It sent some of those jobs overseas, to places like Thailand and Canada. Now there are only 3,500 GE jobs in Lynn, and GE is sharing sophisticated jet technology with China. So maybe Jeff Immelt can start solving the jobs problem by being the first person to sign the Corporate Pledge of Allegiance.
