Honeywell retirees speak out about plans for health care cuts; company responds

Amid the scorching summer seat, Honeywell retirees voiced their angst on Thursday against company plans to cut their health care benefits at the end of July. The chairman of UAW Local 9 retirees expressed his disappointment.

“All these years, they’ve been able to afford to buy health coverage for retirees, and now they are taking it away with the tax breaks they have,” said Tom Zmyslo. “This is an assault on the working and retired people of this country.”

The North Central Indiana AFL-CIO states the move could affect more than 4,700 retirees from Allied Signal, Bendix, and Honeywell Aerospace. The union says the veteran workers were promised lifetime supplemental health insurance.

In a statement, Honeywell spokesman Scott Sayres writes:

"The union contract in question, which included a retiree medical benefit, expired two years ago. Honeywell is in full compliance with its current labor contract with the UAW. Even though most of the company’s U.S. workforce does not have retiree medical benefits, Honeywell has continued to provide that coverage for some of its union members for the past two years as this case proceeded in the courts. The District Court recently upheld Honeywell’s position that its obligation to continue retiree medical benefits ended with the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement. As a result of the judge’s ruling, Honeywell could have terminated the retirees’ health care coverage immediately, but decided instead to provide retirees with four months’ advance notice so they could investigate and enroll in alternative coverage. "The bottom line is these UAW retirees have kept health care coverage longer than most other retired Honeywell employees – and more than two years past the expiration of the last labor contract that provided for retiree medical benefits. In addition, the vast majority of these retirees now have comparable or better coverage available to them at a lower cost through private insurance policies outside of Honeywell."

At the Thursday rally, workers and retirees protested the question of Honeywell sending South Bend Honeywell plant jobs to another location in Turkey.

“This will be a significant job loss, not only for machinists, for the inspections, for crew leaders, assembly, general labors, maintenance, et cetera,” noted John Suher, the president of UAW Local 9.

Suher says he spoke with Honeywell management, which he claims told him an unknown number of piston housing jobs are leaving South Bend at the end of August for the Turkish plant, with torque tubing jobs expected to leave in the third or fourth quarter of 2018.

Honeywell says the work is moving and there is no immediate impact on jobs.

Suher said he has communicated with the International UAW in Detroit, which tells him things look promising for retirees, at moment. He says a judge will make a written decision, possibly as early as next week.

Honeywell’s full statement on moving production work to Turkey reads:

“As a global aerospace company with operations around the world, we continuously assess our business to deliver solutions that meet and exceed our customers’ requirements. In this case, we have implemented a previously announced production decision that better aligns our resources, potentially generates additional sales and helps serve the needs of our regional customers.”