Kansas City Plant contractor Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies has begun bringing in temporary workers as union production workers at the plant continue to strike over concerns about proposed changes to the union’s labor contract. Honeywell said that 130 temporary workers are being brought in from a support contractor to perform maintenance and custodial work starting this week, and it said it also was seeking to bring in 500 additional temporary workers over the next few months to man the facility’s production lines. Honeywell declined to release the name of the support contractor. Honeywell spokeswoman Linda Cook said approximately 30 temporary workers began working at the plant Tuesday and the rest of the workers would start work in stages over the coming weeks and months. “We’ll be phasing them in, bringing them in and training them, so we don’t bring them in all at one time,” Cook said. “What that does is start to relieve some of the salaried workers that are doing those jobs right now to go back to their regular work.”
Officials from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 778 and Honeywell officials met for the last two days without reaching an agreement, according to Cook. The union said on its website that Honeywell rejected a “proposal to end the strike,” but Cook characterized the meetings as “high-level discussions” rather than negotiations and denied that any proposals were made. Approximately 860 Local 778 workers went on strike Oct. 9, rejecting a six-year proposal from Honeywell that would have raised wages but would significantly cut starting pay for new workers, lower the quality and raise the costs of benefits, and diminish union representation at the plant.
