Representatives of the machinists union negotiating a new contract with Textron Aviation said company officials abandoned the talks on Sunday. The union said its committee had reviewed Textron’s proposal and passed back a counterproposal. “We were expecting to receive a ‘last, best and final’ offer from the company,” the union said. “Instead, they walked out of the room without proposing anything.” Textron spokesperson Nicole Alexander told AVweb on Monday, “The company is declining to comment on the labor negotiations process at this point.” A union official told The Wichita Eagle the “deal breaker” was that Textron officials wouldn’t promise to keep all the aviation jobs in Wichita and not outsource some work to other states.
“We had given the company language that we wanted a commitment that the aircraft would be built in Wichita,” Frank Molina, directing business representative for the Machinists District 70, told the Eagle. “We wanted it in black and white.” The Textron officials refused, he said. The talks are meant to combine the workers from Beechcraft and Cessna under a single labor agreement. The two companies were merged into Textron Aviation earlier this year. Beechcraft’s current labor agreement expires in 2016 and Cessna’s will expire in 2017.
