In 1892, the General Electric Company was formed from Thomas Alva Edison's Edison General Electric Company and Charles A. Coffin's Thomas-Houston Company. Over the course of the following century, General Electric (GE) diversified from its initial range of electrical products (light bulbs, electric fans, cooking devices, etc.) into aircraft engines (1917), plastics (1930), media (in 1919 GE co-founded Radio Corporation America (RCA) and acquired NBC (National Broadcasting Company in 1986), financial services (1963), medical equipment, power generation, nuclear weapons, and water desalinization and purification (2005). According to its company Web site, "GE people worldwide are dedicated to turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that help solve some of the world's toughest problems."
GE: Helping Generate Some of the World's Toughest Problems
GE's environmental, health and safety requirements include:
- Reduce waste, emissions and the use of toxic materials.
- Address site contamination issues in a cost-effective and appropriate manner (source: GE)
PCBs
In 1990, GE was fined US$10 million by the US EPA for knowingly dumping 1.3 million tons of polyphenol bichlorides (PCBs) into the Hudson River over a 30-year period. Providing a succinct summary of the company's unwillingness to accept responsibility for this, GE spokesman Mark Behan was quoted by the Associated Press in 1999 as saying, "Despite repeated government and other studies determining that PCBs are a serious threat, GE engages in extensive public relations efforts, suggesting that 'there is no credible evidence that PCBs in the Hudson River pose a risk to people or wildlife'," (EPA Reports Dangers in Eating Fish From Upper Hudson River, Associated Press, August 4, 1999).
(For facts on the serious health risks posed by PCBs in the Hudson River, visit the American EPA's Web site.)
These costly public relations efforts include the argument that it is "unconstitutional" for the EPA to force GE to pay US$500 million towards cleaning up the Hudson River. GE's board of directors recommended a vote against the proposal by shareowners in 2003 that GE report its annual expenditures on PR relating to "health and environmental consequences of PCB exposures, GE's remediation of sites contaminated by PCBs, and/or hazardous substance laws and regulations, as well as expenditures on actual remediation of PCB contaminated sites."
RCA, Taiwan
It was revealed by Taiwan's EPA in 1994 that Radio Corporation America (RCA) in Taiwan, owned alternately by GE and its French subsidiary Thomson, had been illegally digging wells to dump toxic wastes and organic solvents (trichloroethylene (C2HCl3) and tetrachloroethylene (C2Cl4). This has been linked to the deaths of 157 ex-employees, as well as the various forms of cancer suffered by over 1000 ex-employees. The GE Web site provides no information on the case.
GE: War Contracts
GE is "dedicated to making products that make life better".
All products need a market.
For information regarding GE's contracts for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, see Public Integrity's profile.
Further information:
Total government earnings of post-war contractors, including GE (1990-2002)
Campaign contributions of post-war contractors including GE (1990-2002)
GE: Nuclear Power
(Taiwan)
On February 23, 2005, GE announced that it had received a multi-million dollar contract to upgrade monitoring and control systems at the 1,272-megawatt Chin Shan plant in Taiwan. GE also has contracts with Taiwan's other nuclear power plants, including the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, which has been disputed in and out of government offices since the 1980s. (A history of 'Nuclear Four' can be found here.)
The storage of nuclear waste from power plants on Taiwan's Orchid Island (mostly populated by Tao aboriginal people) and the proposed export of this and other waste to North Korea in 1997 have sparked protest from the Tao people, Taiwanese environmental groups, and members of Green Korea (from South Korea) who fear that restrictions on freedom of speech (and therefore protest) in North Korea put the country at risk of becoming a nuclear waste dumping ground. (Taiwan Dumps on North Korea)
(US)
While Steve Zwolinski, president of GE Wind Energy, claims that there is "enough wind power potential from North Dakota to Texas to feed the entire US", the company's nuclear energy division is still pushing for permission to build new plants (see Nuclear Power Industry Sees Signs of a U.S. Revival.)
GE currently owns 34 nuclear stations in the US, while rival Westinghouse owns 49.
GE has designed 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries, yet its nuclear reactors around the world have a fatal flaw. In the event of a nuclear meltdown, there is a 90 percent chance that radiation from GE-designed reactors would be discharged directly into the atmosphere. While the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is aware of the problem, it continues to license GE nuclear reactors.
From Corpwatch
GE: Nuclear weapons
For information on nuclear weapons production facilities which GE has built and operated, or with which GE has had contracts, see the short documentary Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment, which won an Oscar in 1992, reveals the human and environmental costs of GE's involvement in the building and testing of nuclear weapons. (Since the making of this film, GE has pulled out of the nuclear weapons-making industry).
GE: Instances or alleged instances of misconduct
The Project on Government Oversight contains a database of all instances or alleged instances of misconduct by General Electric. Additionally, see Cleanup GE for "criminal, civil, political and ethical transgressions".
General Electric at a glance
With total annual revenues of US$152.4 billion (2004), GE is the world's largest company by market share. The present CEO and Chairman of the Board is Jeffrey R. Immelt, successor to John F. (Jack) Welch. Mr. Welch, Chairman and CEO from 1981 to 2001, is hailed as an 'icon of leadership' and 'the most acclaimed CEO in the world'. His policies included firing the worst performing 10 percent of his employees every year, and during his term as CEO (in 1992) GE's Aircraft Division was suspended from doing business with the government for five days, after pleading guilty to defrauding the government in the sale of military equipment to Israel.
Table of subsidiaries (to follow)
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