Sisters and Brothers,
I wanted to take a little time to clear up any rumors that are going around about the future of the logistics department in the Andover facility. As I spoke about last Tuesday at the Local 1505 monthly meeting, the company has approached us about potentially moving the logistics department to NH. I want to be as transparent as possible because I know that these rumors can be upsetting, especially to the members who work in the logistics department.
The company sat down with us a few weeks back and laid out their plans and ideas that they want to institute over the next 12-18 months. Their ideal plan would be to free space on the shipping dock to expand the production of the Patriot GEM-T missile. We currently build 14 a month and Raytheon wants to expand that to 40 a month, but doing so will need to free up approximately 18,000 square feet of floor space. The company has tried to sugar-coat this by telling us that by expanding the Patriot program it will add approximately 120 Assembly jobs, most of which being B’s. While that sounds great in theory it means that that approximately 70 A’s, B’s and C’s would be displaced by this outsourcing. That is unacceptable to me.
We have been working non-stop trying to find reasonable alternatives for the company including finding properties ourselves in Lawrence that we feel would be a great fit for the logistics department, but as of right now the company does not seem interested, mainly because they want to send work to NH where we do not have recognition (Article 1 of the CBA) and where they can pay people half of what our members make here in Massachusetts.
As of right now this is all the information that we have to go on as we are still in the early stages of bargaining. Please rest assured that my team and I are doing everything that we can to keep this from happening, or at the very least find a reasonable alternative to keeping our work in Massachusetts and done with Local 1505 labor. We would love to keep logistics and find a way to expand the Patriot program as well, as of right now that is our number one priority. I urge everyone, not just the members from logistics to come to the monthly meetings and ask questions, it is the best way to stay informed about all of the goings on in Local 1505.
