GE Arrives: Officials Roll Out Red Carpet, Protesters Raise Signs

Boston, MA - As April snows accumulated on Boston streets, General Electric received a warm welcome from local officials and a chilly reception from protesters Monday, even as the company promised millions in philanthropic contributions.

A crowd of protesters, roughly 75 by one reporter's estimate, gathered on State Street in the snow Monday, ahead of company executives' arrival for a press conference. GE announced earlier this year it would move its global headquarters to Boston's Seaport District, enticed in part by a multi-million dollar incentives package.

GE chief executive Jeff Immelt made the case at the press conference Monday that Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh made a safe bet.

"My colleagues and myself are going to be dedicated to proving them right," he said.

Ahead of the news conference, GE's philanthropic arm announced it would contribute $25 million to Boston Public Schools, with a focus on vocational training, $15 million toward training health workers and another $10 million to provide employment access for under-served populations in Metro Boston, over a five-year period.

Baker and Walsh, the deal's joint architects, took Monday's press conference as an opportunity to welcome Boston's newest corporate entity, and made much of the GE Foundation's promise.

Protesters used the presser as a platform. The "Make GE Pay" message came from a coalition of community groups critiquing the company's incentives package, particularly in light of funding challenges in Boston's public schools and the transit system.

Coalescing around the #MakeGEPay and #GEUnwelcome hashtags online, members of the group advanced their particular critiques beneath the larger tax break umbrella. Those ranged from the environment and GE military contracts, to a general antipathy toward the rich.

Estimates provided to the Boston Globe by City Hall put tax contributions for a property of GE's anticipated size at $48 million over 20 years. The city's incentive over that same period is $25 million. Officials have also stressed the economic implications of a headquarters that size, not to mention one of GE's clout, locating in Boston.

One remaining question, although more or less moot by this point, is how much the incentives were actually needed in the first place.

A research analyst at Cambridge's Lincoln Institute of Land Policy told the Boston Globe this weekend GE likely would have moved to Boston regardless of the incentives package.

And Walsh himself, according to a Boston Magazine profile out this weekend, told a reporter Boston "probably could have lured the company," even without the incentives package.

>> Photo used with permission, credit @JoelWool via Twitter