General Electric Company

Founded in 1892, General Electric was created when Thomas-Houston Electric Company merged with Edison General Electric in New York. The company's first president was Charles Coffin, while Thomas Edison sat on the board of directors until his departure in 1892. Powerful financial backing, through the banking house of J.P. Morgan, and a research-oriented business focus led to early success for the company.

Inheriting many products from Edison's company, General Electric's initial products included elevators, toasters, light bulbs, motors and others. Such appliances were marketed under both the General Electric and Hotpoint brand names. Along with American Telephone and Telegraph and Westinghouse, General Electric helped to form the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as an initial foray into radio broadcasting in the 1920s. An antitrust ruling against the company led to General Electric's 1930 divestiture of its RCA holdings.

By 1980, General Electric had become one of the world's largest companies with $25 billion in revenues from a diverse product line that ranged from consumer electronics to jet engines, plastics and nuclear reactors. When Jack Welch came aboard in 1981, the new president decentralized the corporation's operations and shed under-performing divisions such as semiconductors, air conditioning and housewares.

Focusing on what he considered more successful ventures, Welch steered General Electric into its acquisition of CGR medical supplies and equipment, Employers Reinsurance, Kidder-Peabody and NBC. General Electric continued its cycle of acquisitions and divestitures through the 1990s and into the new millennium. In 2011 it sold 51 percent of its interest in NBC to cable giant Comcast.

General Electric Company and Asbestos

As a manufacturer of electronics, light bulbs, electricity and power generating equipment, General Electric used asbestos in a number of its products and facilities. Many of its early consumer electronics, such as radios, produced a tremendous amount of heat and were therefore insulated with asbestos panels. The company's power production plants utilized insulation, cables, furnaces and wires that contained asbestos.

Given the enormous size of the corporation and its immense range of products, any number of individuals engaged in a wide range of occupations could have been exposed to asbestos-containing facilities or products related to General Electric. Power plant workers, consumer appliance assemblers, electricians, engine assemblers and repair persons are all examples of occupations in which an individual may have been exposed to General Electric asbestos-containing materials. Installation and demolition workers also bore the risk of exposure to asbestos through contact with insulation and wiring that was sheathed in asbestos.

General Electric Company and Asbestos Litigation

Saved by its vast size and diversity, General Electric Company has neither petitioned for bankruptcy protection nor established a trust to address the more than 400,000 asbestos claims that have been brought against it. Embroiled in an insurance coverage suit that has been ongoing since 1997, a judge — in Appalachian Insurance Co. v. General Electric Co. — ruled in 2010 that the continuing coverage suit related only to claims arising from asbestos insulation that General Electric used in the manufacture of turbines. The company had attempted to add additional asbestos claims that were not related to its manufacture of turbines to the existing dispute, but the judge's ruling meant that General Electric would have to file new claims with its insurers for the non-turbine asbestos claims against it.

Many of the claims against GE were brought by government employees, including steel workers, shipyard workers and Naval employees who were exposed to General Electric-built equipment that was manufactured to government specifications that required the use of asbestos. The typical equipment at the base of such suits was marine turbines that were insulated with asbestos. Workers who installed, repaired or worked around such turbines may have suffered asbestos exposure.

Those who worked in a General Electric Company energy production or distribution plant or a manufacturing facility that produced asbestos-containing products should be checked for any development of an asbestos-related disease on a regular basis. Symptoms of mesothelioma can take decades to arise after being exposed to asbestos and treatment is much more effective when the cancer is diagnosed at an early stage.