Like virtually every large American corporation in the coronavirus pandemic, the industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE) is laying off workers. GE executives justify their decision to fire 2,600 workers as necessary given the abrupt plunge in demand for the jet engines the company manufactures, brought about by the air industry’s near collapse.

In two separate silent protests this week, standing six feet apart, GE workers at a plant in Lynn, Massachusetts, and at the firm’s Boston headquarters, demanded another solution: the conversion of GE’s jet engine factories to make ventilators.

This is a story of two corporate divisions. GE Healthcare Systems is a major producer of ventilators, now in scandalously and dangerously short supply. GE Aviation workers, represented by the union IUE-CWA, argue that conversion of their plants to ventilator production is wholly feasible and would substantially increase GE’s capacity to meet the moment.