Speaking with RIF-ee and non RIF-ee co-workers, the sun has set on the history and future for Honeywell Aero(HA) in the metro Phoenix area and there is a little bit of sadness for both those gone and those remaining to pick up the pieces until sunset. Behind the sadness is what the company could have been as the intellect has been pushed out the door. For those that live here and have been employed here, Honeywell has been part of the local economy since the beginning of time. Everyone has a relative who retired from or was layed off. The engineers; low levels to chiefs, have done their best to provide and serve customers with quality products and assist in maintaining a tough supply chain of high mix parts. It is time to say good bye and move on. There are new opportunities, so good luck to everyone!
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With all that's going on with the Aerospace plants in the US; something must be going down. The Stinson Minneapolis plant is a ghost town now. 6-7 engineers compared to about 40 for the whole plant! High level to mid level managers walked out. Facilities employee staff cut in half. Now hearing the AZ Aerospace plant taking hits as well. Honeywell setting up to sell off, spin off, or just plain close up?
Honeywell Minneapolis is on it's 4th day straight of layoffs currently. No direction, nothing from the plant manager as what's going on. Very chaotic. Some department don't even have an engineer or tech.
@3fbp, bingo. The rest is detail...
HON used to be a fairly good company up until the early 2000's when Allied Signal bought them. From that day forward, the entire corporate culture went to hell. "Delight the customer" was replaced with "make the numbers."
15LVKduZ asks if unionizing back in the mid 90s would have made any difference. Maybe for a while but watching how HON closed unionized plants I think it would have turned out pretty much the same and maybe even sooner. I know Hon was paying machinists in Mexico $2.00 per hr. That was ~ 8 years ago but doubt that it has gone up much especially the way Hon thinks 2% or so is a good raise IF they even give one and IF they don't take it away. The greatest generation established and grew PHX. Aero thru the early 50s, 60s, 70s and so on. When my generation, baby boomers started moving into executive positions as most of the Greatest Gen had retired say by early 90s the climate/culture changed and not for the good. As we always said last one out please turn out the lights.
I am a Honeywell wife. I was married to my first husband for 20 years starting out when it was Garrett also. And yes, that was a totally different era: Monetary rewards, soft ball, Christmas parties and rodeos. I was there when the Union tried to come in. I helped my husband make buttons and hand out t-shirts. The union showed up on my doorstop one night. My first husband and I divorced. I married my second husband in 2010 after being divorced for five years. He has now been at Honeywell/Allied Signal/Garrett for over 40 years. The ten years we have been married, I have watched this job s— the life and soul out of him. As soon as they started out sourcing to other companies and countries, I knew that was the end. Since then, it has been nothing but lay offs, moving people around and of course, the famous furloughs. Lay offs always timed after a quarter ends and right before a holiday. Of course you all know what I mean. If Allied HAD unionized back then, do you think it might have made any difference today?
Agree with everything said. I started at Garrett in the 80s and it was truly a family environment. Everyone loved working for Garrett and the company was successful. Flash forward to today and the greedy people that have been in charge over the last 10-20 years have destroyed a once great company. It has been a good run, well wishes to you all. RIP Honeywell.
Well said and well said of @rrq. Urbana is the same. We had a wave of 40 year plus Grimes vets retire in the last year and a half, and not all 40 year+ Grimes vets have retired yet, but they are coming up on it.
Then we have the Allied Singnal folk hitting 30 years and the Honeywell folk hitting 20+.
Everyone in Urbana knows someone that works in the buildings that Warren G. Grimes built or laid the foundation for 90 years ago. It would be such an uprooting of our cities history and skill to have Urbana collapse and close.
Well said. The young people left don’t have any sense of ownership. They are just providing life support. Those of us that have been here since the 80’s built this place. It was part of the family and we were part of the company family. It was a job to be cherished. Everyone wanted to work at Garrett. But alas - along came Allied and Allied/Signal and now Honeywell. It was an American company but now is in foreign hands. Oh well. It was a good run.