Machinists: Union, Textron Aviation making progress in contract talks

Members of the Machinists union at Cessna Aircraft and Beechcraft are scheduled to vote soon on whether to become one bargaining group working under a single labor contract.

A vote is planned for Wednesday at Hartman Arena. Doors will open at 8 a.m. with a meeting on a proposed agreement to begin at 10 a.m.

Voting will begin following the meeting.

Negotiations between Textron Aviation and its largest union, the Machinists, are making progress, the union reported Wednesday on its website.

“We are encouraged by early progress made on non-economic issues and are entering the economic phase of our negotiations,” the union said in an update on the Machinists District 70 website.

Cessna Aircraft’s parent company, Textron, bought Beechcraft in March and formed Textron Aviation.

Machinists and company officials would not comment on the negotiations.

Union negotiators are using the results of a survey in its talks with Textron Aviation, it said. The highest-ranking issue is improving medical coverage, followed by improvements in job security and protecting seniority.

Members said in the survey that they wanted to keep the defined-benefit pension plan and improve earned time off.

“No surprises here,” the union said in a report on the survey results. “These are the same issues that we have been discussing at our monthly union meetings.”

Significant progress has been made in formal negotiations on non-economic issues, the union said.

Now attention is turning to the economic portions of the contract, it said.

The Machinists represent 2,494 hourly workers at Cessna under Local Lodge 774 and 1,627 hourly workers at Beechcraft under Local Lodge 733.

Beechcraft’s current five-year labor agreement expires in 2016; Cessna’s seven-year agreement expires in 2017.

The two agreements vary widely. Union officials have said that combining the workers under one contract would be a challenge but that it could be beneficial as well.

Under one contract, the company would be able to operate as a competitive and flexible unit, the two groups have said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2014 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Machinists: Union, Textron Aviation making progress in contract talks."