Hundreds of Pratt & Whitney machinists protest furloughs as contract talks approach

On furlough for the day, several hundred Pratt & Whitney machinists rallied Friday outside the aviation manufacturer’s Middletown plant to protest what they called a punitive lockout at a time when the backlog of engine orders is nearly $100 billion.

Chanting union slogans and holding up protest signs in the windy, low-30s weather, workers vowed to remember the day when new contract negotiations begin in May.

“Pratt has $100 billion of back-owed work and here we are standing outside. Our valued airline customers are not happy, the U.S government is not, more importantly, we are not happy,” Wayne McCarthy, president of Local 700 of the International Association of Machinists, told the crowd.

“As this company experiences record orders, our wages have stagnated or declined due to the cost of living. The company is threatening to come after our pensions and they have left a generation of workers with no pension at all,” McCarthy said into a megaphone.

McCarthy’s union represents about 1,400 workers at the Middletown plant, and Local 1746 represents another 1,600 at the East Hartford complex. Howie Huestis, president of the East Hartford local, lambasted company management, saying they had workers on the job at overtime rates during the holiday shutdown but then issued furloughs for the last two days of this week.

“They make their end-of-the year numbers and then give us days off without pay,” Huestis said, drawing loud boos from the crowd.

On Friday afternoon, a company spokeswoman declined to answer the workers’ specific complaints, but issued a statement saying the production shutdowns were for operational reasons.

“Pratt & Whitney is taking the appropriate steps to maximize production efficiency during two brief windows in 2025. Select sites will see a limited number of employees using paid or unpaid leave aligned to holiday-adjacent workdays,” the statement said.

“We are taking these and related steps across Pratt & Whitney to maintain competitive cost structure and to meet historic customer demand,” it said.

An underlying issue is the company’s decades-long, gradual shift of employment out of the state. In 1980 its Connecticut workforce numbered 38,000; currently it stands at about 11,000.

Contractual job protection clauses for Connecticut employees cover many existing engine models that are sold to airlines and the military, but workers are concerned about where next-generation engines will be produced.

Just a few months ago, Pratt & Whitney opened an 845,000-square plant in Oklahoma for its military engine line, declaring “Oklahoma City is the heart of our global sustainment network for Pratt & Whitney’s Military Engines business and plays a critical role on every single one of our programs.”

A year earlier, it pumped more than $200 million into an expansion of its Columbus, Ohio engine plant.

In Middletown Friday, protestors chanted “retirement with dignity,” signaling that they will want pension improvements in the new contract as well as progress on wages, health insurance and job protection.

Huestis dismissed Pratt & Whitney’s claim that it needs cost reductions, deriding its outlay of more than $650 million for a casting facility in North Carolina.

“Two years later, they still don’t have the machines to do the casting,” he said.

Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and Mayor Ben Florsheim attended the rally, and Bysiewicz called on Pratt & Whitney to step up.

“We know our families across the state are struggling with inflation, the cost of housing, groceries, energy and health care,” she said. “That’s why when you go to the table to negotiate, Pratt needs to recognize the challenges of inflation and that you are highly skilled people who deserve to be paid what you are worth.”

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