Pratt & Whitney To Cut Jobs

[Money talks]

My sincere condolences and best wishes to those who will lose their jobs.

[Freddy Killowat]

Have no fear, Joe Lieberman and Dodd
will save your jobs..

[lynzie]

doesn't anyone read?? the people "affected" by pratt's actions are choosing to participate - not being laid off. if i were 60 yrs old and my company offered me a big bonus to retire early i would be thanking them!

seems this crowd just has an axe to grind with utc - did they turn you down for a job?

[Family member]

The people being offered the package are dinosaurs who won't retire even with this generous package. They rack up the OT and complain about how they can't retire because they can't afford their health insurance.

What will happen is the younger workers will be laid off (when not enough of the "dinosaurs" accept the offer) and the dinosaurs will work until they drop dead at their job, leaving no one at Pratt in the US with any of the knowledge or skills necessary to complete any contract, leading to further offshoring of jobs.

It's a vicious cycle that upper management should be ashamed to be rewarded for.

[ken]

Bev wrote:

James...
You have it right on. Not only that, but many of these 'poor' workers have a 100% paid tuition program available to them...to go for any accredited program, Associates, Bachelor's, Masters & PhD..how many do you think actually take advantage of it? In today's market, either keep your skills up to date or expect to be laid off when you get paid $30 + an hr to push a button or move parts. You can bash UTC all you want, still the best company these guys will ever work for!

So is the answer for the $30 Blue Collar guy to go back to college and get a degree in accounting or business so that he can be paid $50 an hour to manage and manipulate a metric that adds no value of any kind? This is what msot people are doing in white collar jobs. They are manipulating metrics that even higher paid people manipulate and then make wrong decisions based on them. This is America today, lots of people performing non value added functions.

[UTC employee]

Family member wrote:

The people being offered the package are dinosaurs who won't retire even with this generous package. They rack up the OT and complain about how they can't retire because they can't afford their health insurance.
What will happen is the younger workers will be laid off (when not enough of the "dinosaurs" accept the offer) and the dinosaurs will work until they drop dead at their job, leaving no one at Pratt in the US with any of the knowledge or skills necessary to complete any contract, leading to further offshoring of jobs.
It's a vicious cycle that upper management should be ashamed to be rewarded for.

Whine, whine, whine.

Not only are workers being offered a generous buyout, but I believe they'll still be eligible for the employee scholar program for a period of time after leaving. Workers over 60 are probably still eligible for the defined-benefit pension that UTC stopped offering as an option for new employees a few years back.

I worked at Sikorsky for a while and saw the rampant sense of entitlement among long-time union workers in the factory. Those dinosaurs want everything, and they want it their way and to be paid $40/hour for doing it.

In the grand scheme of the workforce, Pratt says they're overmanned by only 60 or 70 hourly workers out of a few thousand in CT. That's hardly what I consider a rampant layoff scenario.

Yeah, senior management is over-compensated and the UTC employees who do the real work don't make enough. It's also a company that provides me comparatively stable employment, decent medical benefits for my family, a pension plan, and an employee education program that's paid for two degrees of mine and will be paying for another in a few years.

[ricbee]

Family member wrote:

The people being offered the package are dinosaurs who won't retire even with this generous package. They rack up the OT and complain about how they can't retire because they can't afford their health insurance.
What will happen is the younger workers will be laid off (when not enough of the "dinosaurs" accept the offer) and the dinosaurs will work until they drop dead at their job, leaving no one at Pratt in the US with any of the knowledge or skills necessary to complete any contract, leading to further offshoring of jobs.
It's a vicious cycle that upper management should be ashamed to be rewarded for.

Not too long ago some senior workers would offer to leave because they wanted the younger people to be able to raise their kids. Will that happen today? I hope so....

[Chris Tucker]

UTC does anything to show a profit including selling land right before the qtr end just to pad the bottom line. Great example of how to please stock holders and shaft your workers. The bottom line is what its all about. Show me the company that will forgo profits to keep workers employed. All the profits go to the management that killed the company.

[Bev]

Ken...

It's a choice to work for UTC, period. Trust me, the benefits far outweigh the pitfalls and if people think they are just 'pushing metrics'..well, then they aren't doing their job right & don't understand our systems. I've been on both sides of the fence & fought like h e l l to get back into UTC.....as long as I continue improving upon myself & my skills, there is longevity here.

Besides the fact, this is a voluntary separation, one that is quite attractive, too. Makes me wish I was 30 yrs older! ;)

[DR J]

I am a Pratt employee!! and the East Hartford big shots will be in Columbus tommorrow morning for a reason that none of us know. we were told in a meeting last week that there was talks of Layoffs for us. We are not a union shop, and we have knwo idea what is going to happen to us. and i was a victim of a Pratt layoff after 9-11. The package wasn't all that great!

[Bev]

DR J...

Well..if you were laid off previously from Pratt, hopefully you got off your butt like some of us and took advantage of the Educational program to expand skills. If not,frankly, you deserve the fallout. It's high time employees took some responsibility for ensuring their future as well. Why would you not get a degree on UTC's dime..at least then you could take it elsewhere ( easily) if you had too.. We are all responsible for our futures & our career path & if we let valuable benefits sit unused, we have no one but ourselves to blame when the layoffs come.

And yes, I am a utc employee!

[DR J]

Bev wrote:

DR J...
Well..if you were laid off previously from Pratt, hopefully you got off your butt like some of us and took advantage of the Educational program to expand skills. If not,frankly, you deserve the fallout. It's high time employees took some responsibility for ensuring their future as well. Why would you not get a degree on UTC's dime..at least then you could take it elsewhere ( easily) if you had too.. We are all responsible for our futures & our career path & if we let valuable benefits sit unused, we have no one but ourselves to blame when the layoffs come.
And yes, I am a utc employee!

Well BEV! I not only got off of my BUTT!! and got a Degree! I am 2 classes away off my Butt and about to secure my second Degree!(: Please don't assume that you know everything about people that are subject to layoff. My faith is such that I am not really concerned about a layoff. But if you believe that everyone that is laid off deserves it,.....Hmmmm. I pray that you are not subject to layoffs and that all goes well with you. Good luck!

[dan the man]

Get the knife out wrote:

Time to trim off all the fat!!

Did I get it right>

[dan the man]

Freddy Killowat wrote:

Have no fear, Joe Lieberman and Dodd
will save your jobs..

All Joe and Chris are doing is keeping Indians busy with the work

[driverdan]

everyone here knows how corporate america works,still, unions have this cradle-to-grave mentality, and this why blue-collar jobs are sacrificed. i have seen it first-hand many years, though it is not the only reason for this latest action, it is one of them. get a moral backbone unions, farmers do not have a union, yet you still enjoy milk, eggs, beef, chicken, pork, vegetables, fruit, at a far better price than fuel, heat, utilities, even cable tv, broadband, phone. suck it up princesses, stop complaining, whining, blaiming, and look in the mirror and ask yourself, who are you? your forefathers built this country so you could enjoy a better life. are you?

[Dave]

Jobs are not Guaranteed. They never were...