Gulfstream Announces Limited Four-Week Furlough Program …
Gulfstream Aerospace announced on May 1 a four-week shutdown of its initial phase of manufacturing operations in Savannah, placing more than 1,000 employees on furlough from June 30 through July 27. Management and non-management employees in direct manufacturing departments and designated employees in support departments will be affected. The company says customer deliveries and customer service will not be affected. Aircraft manufactured in Savannah include the large-cabin, mid-range Gulfstream G300; the large-cabin, long-range G400; and the large-cabin, ultra-long-range G500 and G550.”With sales at a level well below prior years, we don’t need to build as many planes as originally planned,” said Bryan Moss, president, in a statement. “We determined that a shutdown and furlough was the best way to reduce the number of planes to match market demands.”Affected employees will be allowed to take vacation or use accrued personal business time, if they so choose. They will also maintain benefits such as medical insurance and accrue service time for pension purposes.
… While Bombardier Recalls 400 Of Its Furloughed Workers
Bombardier Aerospace has recalled most of the 500 workers furloughed at the company’s Wichita plant late last year and expects to bring back even more over the next 90 days. In fact, 406 of the cut Bombardier employees are already back on the job. The company expects to call back 200 more workers, said a Bombardier spokesman. As the furloughed employees return to work, production is ramping up, with construction of components for the Learjet 60 is pretty much back to normalAmong those will be some of the 900 Bombardier workers who were laid off in the past year and a half. However, not everything is good at Bombardier. The company has given notice that it may close one of its six aircraft manufacturing plants in North America and Europe. In Wichita, city officials are considering offering financial incentives to lower the company’s costs here and persuade it to stay — or even expand. Discussions between the company and local officials on that topic began about two months ago. Now, Bombardier Aerospace officials have settled onthe government incentives they will seek. Although the incentives would help the employment situation for Wichita workers, the company can’t guarantee jobs, said Bombardier spokesman Dave Franson. “The answer is there are no guarantees,” Franson said. “The whole process,which was initiated by local governments, was designed to help us be more attractive to our own corporate parents,” he told The Wichita Eagle.
