District 26 members from three IAM Locals in Middletown, East Hartford and Cheshire, CT, overwhelmingly voted to authorize the Negotiating Committee to call for a strike vote if the membership rejects Pratt & Whitney's (P&W) contract offer in December. The strike sanction vote does not, itself, compel a strike.
The strike sanction comes after District 26 members rejected a so-called “last, best and final” offer from P&W, the Hartford-based subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation (UTC) in August. The vote followed P&W's request to the IAM open talks nearly two months earlier than scheduled.
“We put Pratt and Whitney on notice in August," said Eastern Territory GVP Lynn D. Tucker, Jr. "A one-way relationship is no longer acceptable to our members or the IAM."
Negotiations re-open on November 8th and the current agreement is set to expire December 2, 2007.
