General Electric to move up to 225 locomotive production jobs to Fort Worth from Erie, Pa.

General Electric’s transportation division plans to move as many as 225 locomotive production jobs to its Fort Worth manufacturing facility from its century-old Erie, Pa., plant, the company announced to employees Thursday.

The transition would begin next year between April and June and would involve a recall of Fort Worth employees laid off earlier this year. It would also eliminate locomotive production at the Erie plant, which employs more than 2,500 people, by the end of 2018. About 575 jobs in Erie would be affected.

The move was necessary to drive efficiency and preserve U.S. jobs, said Richard Simpson, GE Transportation’s vice president of global supply chain.

North American freight locomotive volume has dropped by about 10 percent, and locomotive orders for all manufacturers in the United States have declined, GE spokesman Tim Bader said in an email. That downturn, which Simpson called significant, has increased pressure in the international market.

“Our Fort Worth facility is very competitive, and as a result, this allows us to compete in a very tough space,” Simpson said.
The Fort Worth manufacturing facility, located west of Texas Motor Speedway, opened in December 2012 and began producing locomotives in 2013, Simpson said. About 600 people work there.

In addition to the 225 recalled employees in Fort Worth, GE Transportation expects 200 jobs to be created at its U.S.-based suppliers, some of which are based in North Texas.

Simpson would not disclose the financial aspects of the move or discuss wages paid to locomotive production employees. GE Transportation, with headquarters in Chicago, accounted for $4.7 billion in revenue in 2016 and $1 billion in profit for the nation’s 13th largest company.

The union representing GE’s Erie employees has 10 days to request a bargaining period over the job loss, Bader said.

Erie would remain GE’s largest transportation location with about 2,000 hourly employees, Simpson said. It has operated there for more than a century. That location will continue to house prototype development as one of GE’s two main design hubs. The other is an engineering design facility in India.