Vol. 80/No. 21      May 30, 2016

 
(front page)

Indiana aerospace workers reject cuts, fight lockout
at Honeywell

 
SOUTH BEND, Indiana — Production workers at the Honeywell International plant here are picketing around the clock after the company locked out 317 members of United Auto Workers Local 9 on May 9. The local voted 270 to 30 to reject Honeywell’s “Last, best, and final offer," which drastically increases health care costs, tears up work schedules and allows the company to ignore job classifications.

The plant makes airplane brakes and wheels for Boeing, Airbus and other aerospace giants. Honeywell also locked out 41 Auto Workers at its Green Island, New York, brake pad plant.

“We couldn’t accept going from $68 a week to $114 a week for family medical and a deductible increase from $3,400 to $8,000," said Local 9 President Adam Stevenson.

“We’ve always had set work schedules, start times of 7:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.," said Ivan Donaldson, an electrician with 19 years in the plant. “Honeywell wants to eliminate that so you start whenever they want and work as long as they want, just like what they do to workers at Walmart." Forced overtime would also increase.

Honeywell brought in at least 200 people from Strom Engineering, a strikebreaking outfit, two months before the lockout began. “They were on the floor trying to learn our jobs even before we took a strike vote," Stevenson said. “But that also helped people who were wavering to see what the company was up to. It brought us together."

Honeywell boasted a 6.3 percent profit increase for the first quarter of 2016, a net income increase of $1.19 billion, and a 3 percent sales increase in its aerospace division, its biggest by revenue. In a statement it said that the concessions it is demanding are “consistent with the economic realities facing the industry," pointing to “thousands of job cuts announced by our largest customer in March."

“They treat us like we’re a commodity, like corn or soybeans," said John Billington, a substation electrician.

“The unions are in trouble," said William Bolen, a CNC machinist with eight years seniority. “If we don’t stop it here it will spread. And the government is on the same side as corporate America. That’s who runs the government — why else don’t we have at least a $15 minimum wage?"

Honeywell’s lock-out tactic is nothing new. In 2010 and 2014 the company locked out workers at its uranium conversion plant in Metropolis, Illinois, after members of United Steelworkers Local 7-669 refused to accept major concessions. Both times workers beat back some of the company’s demands.

 
 
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