Yesterday, (May 5), more than 3,000 members of Machinist (IAM) Locals 700 and 1746 went on strike at Pratt & Whitney’s Middletown and East Hartford, Connecticut plants. Those locations are where P&W manufactures its geared turbofan (GTF) engines for Airbus airliners and military F135 engines for the F-35 Lightning II fighter.
No money, no funny, pony up!
“We have no immediate plans to resume negotiations at this time…”
Does this really mean, “Given the uncertain and fluid situation with tariffs, this production stoppage comes at a convenient time, and we do not intend to end it prematurely.”
This is typical UNION tactics. P&W machinists UNION has the reputation of: being on strike! Coming off strike! We’re looking forward to going on strike!!! I support American workers 100%. But I also support a full days work for a full days pay! The pension these guys get it’s something 95% of Americans could only dream of!! Enough of the greed from the unions!!
Almost every single company these days has had inadequate wage increases, weakened retirement benefits, rising health insurance costs and a lack of job security assurance. And?
I’m really sorry, but like Warbirdflyer57 said, these guys are still way better off than most skilled workers in the USA (and a hell of a lot better off than private companies and what unskilled workers are facing). Just sayin’.
Raytheon Technologies which owns Pratt&Whitney had a 40% increase in profits last year. They can afford to spread some of that wealth to their workers. And 3% doesn’t even cover inflation since their last contract.
As far as your rhetoric goes for being on strike, always on strike, just coming off strike Not true. And your random statement about the pension; just because 95% of America (which this is also a false statement) doesn’t have a pension doesn’t mean that these skilled workers don’t deserve one. What happened to the days when a halfway decent company would actually took care of their employees while holding a little bit of money back or contribute to a pension fund to show that they valued and respected their important employees. Want to talk about greed let’s look at some examples of greed. Every one of the largest companies right now make billions and pay their employees minimum wage with no retirement and minimal benefits. Meanwhile the top or upper echelon are making hundreds of millions of dollars. There are now more billionaires in the US than ever, yet people who put in 40 years at that same company have to try and live on social security. So try and be a little more empathetic and realistic in your statements. Remember this country is nothing without the worker . if we were strong like Europe we would shut every single one of these companies down anytime one company struck; kind of like Europe. I love when Europe shuts down.
Totally disagree. This is a skilled workforce who sacrificed for many many years and have helped to build this company up from almost nothing. Many of them have put in 10 20 30 40 years. Many patents thought of design created and produced have been from these employees The prophets that this company makes are not from a manager not from a CEO not from a VP The profits this company makes are from the worker. Part of what’s wrong in America today is the greed of the middle and senior leadership The drive for them is to do nothing but drive up the stock price continue to have total greed for overcompensation pay packages that are spiraling out of control guarantees that even when the company is doing poorly or going under that the senior leadership receives bonuses basically they’re stealing from the common worker but nobody seems to think like that. There is no loyalty in management they will run a company into the ground continue to take bonuses till the last day and then lay off every employee while they laugh and move on to the next company and the next pay package. As an former exec myself who climbed the ranks from the very bottom I left due to the fact that some of these tactics were sickening. I just couldn’t stomach the lies the falsifications and the downtalking.
And this, folks, is one of the reasons why many industries in the US moved their operations overseas. While I empathize with the workers, they are getting better benefits than most American employees these days. That isn’t a good excuse - corporate America is making huge profits on the backs of their employees. Dropping pensions and health benefits has helped the corporations and their stockholders at the expense of the workers. (Yikes! I’m beginning to sound like Bernie Sanders! 
)
Skilled workers aren’t cheap. Cheap workers aren’t skilled. What do you want building aircraft, engines and technology?
"Skilled workers aren’t cheap. Cheap workers aren’t skilled. "
Which is why precision machining these days is done by additive manufacturing and precise robot guided machining (and why assembly is done by robots with high resolution lasers and torque sensors).
So yea, I DO want precision and accuracy building aircraft engines and technology and the way to get consistency is the use of technology, not hand tools.
It’s unfortunate P&W union employees strike but there’s good reason for them when forced to if contract talks balks against P&W not offering reasonable raises.
I’m just curious… Wondering why so many union members who may well have legitimate grounds for better contract terms vote so enthusiastically for Republicans. Despite shifts in the party’s focus over last few decades, one consistent core policy has been to weaken labor union bargaining power and enable the corporate behaviors that empty pension funds and terminate Defined Benefit pension plans, terminate health plans and generally reward the Shareholder value crowd… Just seems to be voting against their own interests, yet more prevalent than ever among UAW, Teamsters and Machinists this recent cycle…
See the “Leopards Eating People’s Faces Off Party” conundrum. People vote for a party that they think will harm others that they don’t like and always act surprised when the leopards eat THEIR face off.
“I’m just curious…”
No, you’re probably not; or you would already know why.
Because you did ask, tariffs are the perfect time for local manufacturing unions to strike(they have more leverage). Unions in the USA also like Parties that make local jobs (America first) a priority instead of moving mfg lobs outside the borders. Lastly, stopping the truly vast flood of incoming cheap labor helps all citizens (including union members) in the job market. So you see Johnny, they DID vote in their own best interest.
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