Textron Machinists Vote To Strike
5,000 workers were scheduled to walk off the job at midnight.
About half of Textron's Wichita employees were scheduled to go on strike just after midnight today after rejecting the company's latest contract offer on Sunday. About 5,000 members of the Machinists Union turned down Textron's offer of a 26% wage increase over four years and a $3,000 annual lump sum bonus. The strike vote required a two-thirds majority. The union's negotiating committee had recommended acceptance, but the union quickly got into the spirit of things.
"As a united front, IAM Local 774 members are pursuing improved pay rates, healthcare, and job security after having voiced their concerns regarding compensation and benefits, highlighting the pressing need for enhancements to ensure the well-being and livelihoods of all workers," the union said in a statement after its membership's "overwhelming" rejection of the deal.
Textron took a different view, of course. “The contract offer, which took six weeks of thoughtful and good-faith negotiations by both the Union and the company negotiating committees, provided a plan that aimed to protect the future of all Textron Aviation employees and the Wichita community,” it said in a statement. There's no word on when negotiations will resume, and in the meantime non-union employees have been told to cross picket lines to report for work according to NPR.
