GE's Cicero Operation Achieves Major OSHA Award CICERO, Ill.- (BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 17, 2003--The GE Consumer Products facility in Cicero, Illinois has been awarded the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration's (OSHA) designation as a STAR participant work site under the agency's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). The agency's STAR designation is a distinction earned by a select few work sites that have achieved excellence in their employee health and safety programs. GE's Cicero facility, which makes components for GE dishwashers and ranges, joins an elite group, consisting of less than 1% of all U.S. work sites.
Only about 1000 work sites in the U.S., out of more than 6.2 million, have attained the level of safety performance required to earn VPP STAR Status. The GE facility in Cicero is the ninth GE Consumer Products facility to achieve the VPP STAR Status. There are currently 140 employees at the GE Cicero facility. The OSHA Team noted in their report that employee involvement in our facility was an area of excellence, said Laura Whiteis, plant manager. There is a strong feeling of family in this plant.
People are concerned about their co-worker's well being as well as their own. This drives making safety a priority every day, she continued. The report even mentions this specifically: During the audit the concept that the workforce was a family was mentioned several times. The audit team found this to be an accurate description on the relationship within the plant. Our GE Cicero employees set out to make this plant one of the safest in the nation, and they have done exactly that, said Richard Segalini, vice president of Supply Chain for GE Consumer Products.
It is the dedication and hard work of our people that is largely responsible for achieving this award. I always think of our Cicero team as the Little Engine That Could because it continues to accomplish such great things, Segalini explained. OSHA initiated the VPP project in 1982 as a cooperative effort among industry, workers and the government to recognize workplaces in the U.S. that exceed OSHA standards. GE Cicero's recommendation for recognition as a STAR participant site was achieved after a thorough and intense week-long on-site review of the plant's safety and health programs.
This award represents years of hard work by former and current employees, noted Bob Anderson, environmental health and safety manager for the GE Cicero facility. This is an example of exceptional employee involvement and enthusiasm by our employees represented by Sheet Metal Workers International Association Local 73, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134, and the International Association of Machinists Local 701. Our thanks to the union leaders for their continued support, he continued.
The company and the unions are working together more than ever to improve the safety and well being of the employees, said John Agrela, business agent for Sheet Metal Workers International Association Local 73. We are happy that this hard work has been acknowledged and honored by OSHA, he continued.
Voluntarily participating in OSHA's VPP generates many benefits in addition to exemplary worker health and safety. VPP participants often report their employees' motivation to work safely brings improvements in quality and productivity as well. Workers' compensation and other injury related costs fall substantially at VPP participant sites, and lost time injury rates are typically 60 to 80 percent below industry average. GE Cicero's rates were 72% percent below the average in 2001.
General Electric ranks among the top U.S. companies participating in OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program. To date, more than 75 GE work sites across the country have been awarded the OSHA VPP Star status. GE Consumer Products is an $8.5 billion business unit, providing products and services in the major appliance and lighting industries, manufacturing and selling more than 15 million appliances and 4 billion lamp products annually in over 150 world markets.
General Electric (NYSE:GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram(R), Profile(TM), GE(R), Hotpoint(R), SmartWater(TM), Reveal(R) and SmartHome(TM) brands. For more information about GE Consumer Products, consumers can visit the company's web site at www.GEConsumerProducts.com.
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CONTACT: GE Consumer Products
Julie Wood, 502-452-5914