Textron Aviation workers get loud ahead of critical contract vote scheduled Saturday | Opinion

If you happened to be driving near the intersection of Douglas and Topeka around the Tuesday rush hour, you probably know there’s a labor dispute brewing between Textron Aviation and its workers.

It’d be hard not to.

Members of Machinists Union Local 774 packed the intersection with about the biggest crowd I’ve seen downtown in years that wasn’t related to NCAA basketball March Madness.

I’m usually really good at estimating crowd sizes , but this time, about all I can say is it was at least several hundred. There were large knots of workers at each of the four corners of the intersection and spread out down both sides of Douglas to the east of the intersection as far as Naftzger Park.

They were there to show their solidarity and try to influence negotiations on a new contract that are ongoing in the Hilton Garden Inn, east of the intersection. The contract will affect about 5,000 workers.

The two sides, labor and management, are believed to still be pretty far apart in the negotiations with a deadline rapidly approaching. The company, which manufactures Cessna and Beechcraft planes, is expected to make a “final offer” on a contract this week, which the union will vote on Saturday.

In the Tuesday evening demonstration, workers marched back and forth across the intersection under the watchful eye of the Wichita Police Department, which sent several units to the scene.

It was raucous and it was loud. Workers blew air horns and whistles and invited passing motorists to join in with their car horns. The noise was probably somewhere around the decibel level of the jet planes they build.

“We just want a good contract — medical, dental, ETO,” (earned time off), water-jet operator David Wright shouted in my ear, which was the only way to conduct an interview over the din. “They’re up there looking down. We gotta let ‘em know.”

They know.

There are three possible outcomes to the pending vote:

▪ Workers can accept the new contract, with a simple majority voting yes.

▪ They can vote to authorize a strike, which requires a two-thirds vote of the members.

▪ They can vote to reject the contract, but if they fall short of the two-thirds necessary for a strike, the contract offer takes effect by default.

There were lots of signs being waved, but this one particularly caught my eye: “Will strike if provoked.”

Seeing the determination in the faces of the workers on Tuesday, I wouldn’t be surprised.