What's Behind Pratt & Whitney's Layoffs and Work Cuts?
The defense giant started 2025 with furloughs and temporary layoffs.
Hi everyone,
It’s a chaotic time to be covering the defense industry. With the Trump administration promising a Pentagon budget of $1 trillion amidst a flurry of cuts to the Department of Defense, all eyes are on the federal government to read the tea leaves for the American military-industrial complex. But in Washington’s shadow is an important skirmish fought by the people working within the most expensive military program in the country. I explore this in my latest (and first!) for Inkstick.
Pratt & Whitney, the century-old engine manufacturer founded and headquartered in Connecticut, is the lynch pin in Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program. The RTX subsidiary boasts exclusive rights to producing the aircraft’s engine, which is manufactured in the cities of East Hartford and Middletown before being shipped off 1,600 miles to Fort Worth for assembly.
While Connecticut is abound with stereotypes, reliance on military contracting is far from one of them. However, being a link in the military’s supply chain has long been crucial for the state’s economy, and no one understands that better than the workforce of Pratt & Whitney, where contracts with the U.S. and other militaries fill thousands of positions on the shop floor, in cubicles, and at home. But employees are saying that Pratt is not granting them the dignity — or benefits — they deserve.
Despite a year of strong growth, Pratt kicked off 2025 with a round of “mandatory furloughs,” or temporary layoffs, of machinists, locking them out of the campus for five days due to alleged cost overruns, supply chain shortages, and an what the company called a “lack of work.” The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), responded to the furloughs with a roaring protest in January, attended by Pratt employees from across the state, elected officials, and political activists, putting the company on notice for contract negotiations approaching in May.
Many non-union white collar employees attended the rally in solidarity not knowing that, less than a month later, Pratt’s cost-cutting would come knocking at their door as well. In late January, Pratt announced layoffs affecting its office and remote workers across the country due to the same cost curtailment needs. According to one employee who spoke to Inkstick, the layoffs came after widespread alarm that the company did not hit its ambitious double-digit growth benchmarks for fiscal year 2024, still haunted by a manufacturing malfunction concerning powder metal that cost Pratt billions in 2023.
Paradoxically, these cost curtailment measures coincide with Pratt’s growth in Asheville, North Carolina, where it is investing millions of dollars into a casting facility that would work on many of the same components coming out of Connecticut –with less cost overhead and a non-union workforce.
These recent events weigh heavily on the minds of the Fighting Machinists, who are gearing up for contract negotiations in May of this year, even proposing a strike, their first since 2001, if talks fall through. To understand what is fueling the militancy of Pratt’s labor force during this historic moment, you can read more in our latest.
Read More: “Pink Slips and Pay Cuts in the US Defense Industry’s Birthplace”
Comments? Story ideas about Connecticut? Send them to me at nsrinath@inkstickmedia.com