In the tougher economic times that we have today, there is bound to be some fallout with businesses and their employees. Cessna is apparently encountering that same problem now. AIN reports that there may be a possible strike looming in the future over at Cessna:
Cessna Aircraft made a new contract proposal on Monday that was immediately rejected by machinist union leadership, with the recommendation that its members follow suit in a vote set for Saturday. The seven-year contract offer by Cessna was described by president, chairman and CEO Jack Pelton as “very fair, given the extraordinary challenges we are facing in our economy and in our industry.” Union District 70 president Steve Rooney disagreed in no uncertain terms. He said rather than asking for a short-term sacrifice to help the company through bad economic times, Cessna was asking for permanent cuts over seven years. Rooney alleges that the Wichita-based aircraft manufacturer used the economic downturn as an opportunity “to gut the contract and saddle employees with extreme and punitive measures.” Union members are scheduled to vote on Saturday by simple majority whether to accept or reject the contract. If a majority reject the contract, union members will then be asked to vote a second time on whether to approve a strike, which will require a two-thirds majority. If the membership does not vote to approve a strike, the contract will be accepted by default. If they vote to strike, the work stoppage would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, which could bring the Citation production lines to a standstill.
With few contracts being written for new business aircraft and even many of the orders now placed being canceled, manufacturers are beginning to scale back their operations and in that case part of where cuts are made will have an impact on workers. I hope that this can be avoided. We will see over the weekend if the work stoppage occurs.