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GE plans to close DeKalb plant Unions asked for proposal to keep it open By ERIC R. OLSON eolson@shawmedia.com DeKALB – General Electric has notified workers at its DeKalb Motors Plant that it intends to close the facility in the first quarter of 2015, a company spokesperson said Friday. The announcement, made to union representatives Thursday, gives union members 60 days to submit a proposal to keep the facility open, said Kim Freeman, spokeswoman for GE. If the plant at 1900 Pleasant St. in
DeKalb is shut down, 94 workers would lose their jobs. “Right now the plant is not competitive,” Freeman said. “When you look at motors sold by other competitors, the DeKalb motors are 20 to 30 percent more expensive. “Because of that, we intend to close the plant. However, if the union wants to come back and give us a proposal on how we can close that gap, we have 60 days to do that.” GE has operated its DeKalb Motors Plant since 1946. Work-
The General Electric building at 1900 Pleasant St. in DeKalb, as seen Friday. The company has announced its intent to close the facility in 2015.
ers at the plant make small motors used in residential clothes dryers. Two unions represent workers at the plant. Most are represented by the IUE-CWA Local 1081and the rest by IAM Local 2068. The two unions plan to bargain jointly with the company, said Kathy Brown, IUE-CWA Local 1081 president. The company’s cost-cutting demands will not be met easily, Brown said.
Rob Winner – rwinner@ shawmedia.com
See PLANT, page A8
Beware of stopped school buses
Target systems breach growing Data was stolen from as many as 70 million people By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO and MICHELLE CHAPMAN The Associated Press
Photos by Rob Winner – rwinner@shawmedia.com
A line of cars wait as a bus stops to drop off a child Friday on Route 23 just north of Whipple Road in Sycamore. A new law that took effect this month allows school districts to install video cameras on buses to catch vehicles that pass stopped buses while dropping off or picking up students.
Local districts consider benefits, costs of cameras on vehicles At a glance
By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Local school bus drivers have complained for years about people driving past school buses while they are picking up or dropping off children, DeKalb police Lt. James McDougall said. DeKalb police have taken note. Next week, DeKalb residential officer Jared Burke will ride on DeKalb school buses on the lookout for violators of the law and potentially cite them. Often, bus drivers are not able to identify drivers who break the law while they are supervising children. “We ask [bus] drivers to get the license plate and color of the car, as much information as they can,” McDougall said. “Their comment back to us is, ‘We’re watching the children. We don’t have enough time to do that.’ ” The planned ride-alongs are one way officials are being proactive about the issue, but a new law that
A new state law allows school districts to install cameras to catch people who illegally pass stopped school buses; local officials say they’re not buying in just yet. When bus drivers see someone driving past the stop bar illegally, they report it through a radio and communicate with local law enforcement with a description of the vehicle.
A student crosses the street Thursday at a school bus stop on Somonauk Street in Sycamore. took effect this month also allows school districts to install video cameras on buses to catch offenders. The law allows for the installation of cameras on school buses to
record images of vehicles that pass the bus while it is stopped to drop off or pick up students. In Illinois, drivers who pass a stopped school bus with the stop
arm extended face a $150 fine and three-month suspension of their license for the first offense. They can be fined $500 with a one-year suspension if they commit a second offense within five years. However, as with red-light cameras already in use in some communities, the violations captured by bus cameras would not be considered moving violations. Fines would be the same, but they would
NEW YORK – Fallout from Target’s pre-Christmas security breach is likely to affect the company’s sales and profits well into the new year. The company disclosed on Friday that the massive data theft was significantly more extensive and affected millions more shoppers than the company reported in December. As a result of the breach, millions of Target customers have become vulnerable to identity theft, experts say. The nation’s second largest discounter said hackers stole personal information – including names, phone numbers as well as email and mailing addresses – from as many as 70 million customers as part of a data breach it discovered last month. Target announced Dec. 19 that about 40 million credit and debit card accounts had been affected by a data breach that happened between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15 – just as the holiday shopping season was getting into gear. As part of that announcement, the company said customers’ names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates, debit-card PINs and the embedded code on the magnetic strip on the back of cards had been stolen. According to new information gleaned from its investigation with the Secret Service and the Department of Justice, Target said Friday that criminals also took non-credit-cardrelated data for about 70 million people. This is information Target obtained from customers who, among other things, used a call center and offered their phone number or shopped online and provided an email address.
See BUSES, page A8 See TARGET, page A7
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