Spirit union employee strike could hurt local economy, aviation industry
23 June 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Spirit AeroSystems has paused factory production ahead of the union worker strike beginning at midnight on Saturday.
Subcontractors who provide for Spirit AeroSystems received a message to pause all shipments beginning Thursday. Many of those companies now have nowhere to send the excess mechanical parts.
“It’s going to affect our sales by probably about 40 to 50 percent,” said McGinty Machine president Don McGinty.
He says half of their sales currently go to Spirit AeroSystems. Globe Engineering also provides products to Spirit.
“Fuel lines, hydraulic lines, fire wall, just a variety of different parts,” said Globe Engineering CEO Jeff Teague.
Teague says if the worker strike continues, they could potentially lose up to $100,000 a month.
McGinty says he’s been through worker strikes before, and he believes Spirit and the Machinists won’t take long to come to a negotiation.
“They’ll get an agreement and allow us to ship parts in. They have in the past, that is. So it may be a month from now that they get the door opened up,” said McGinty.
But if it takes months, the production plans will need to shift.
“We’ll just shift our workload over to Lockheed Martin or Gulfstream or some other areas,” explained McGinty.
Teague says Globe Engineering provides to about 15 different companies, so the loss of Spirit won’t be detrimental. But it could lead to less work for employees.
“We start cutting back that much, we start cutting hours on employees, and we’ll look at Furlow and things like that. But we’ve got enough other work, I think we can offset it,” said Teague.
Both businesses say a prolonged decision will have a ripple effect on the manufacturers who provide them with raw materials.
“Paragon services does a lot of finishes for us on our spirit parts and painting and film, that kind of stuff, Hyrdaflow and Wiggins people that build fittings,” said Teague.
McGinty explained that even tool shops could have their sales impact because of the decline in demand from manufacturers.
“This is the way it works. And it takes time, and you just have to be prepared for it and work your way through it,” said McGinty.