Aerospace firm Pratt & Whitney axes over 400 workers in Singapore as Covid-19 batters industry

[The_King]

SINGAPORE — American aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney will lay off more than 400 of its workers in Singapore as part of a retrenchment exercise, the firm said on Monday (Aug 3), blaming the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on the aviation sector.

The retrenchments will affect 19.3 per cent of the more than 2,000 employees in Singapore, the company told TODAY.

In a joint statement with the Singapore Industrial and Services Employees Union (SISEU), Pratt & Whitney said current forecasts indicate that it will take until 2023 at the earliest for the aviation sector to recover to pre-Covid-19 levels.

“The prolonged recovery timeline for commercial aviation forced this difficult but necessary decision by Pratt & Whitney companies, after implementing other cost-containment measures including temporary salary reductions and shorter work weeks, cancellation of merit increases, hiring freezes and discretionary spending cuts,” the statement said.

The statement added that Pratt & Whitney companies began working with SISEU and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) in April on the cost measures it was taking. 

“With retrenchment taken as a last resort, all parties have collaborated to ensure that the exercise is carried out in a transparent, fair and responsible manner,” the firm and SISEU said.

 

 

SISEU will continue to work closely with Pratt & Whitney companies to ensure that affected employees receive the necessary assistance.

In addition to retrenchment packages for affected employees, SISEU had asked the Pratt & Whitney companies to provide these employees with a one-off training grant, to help boost employees’ efforts to upgrade their skills and better position themselves for future opportunities. 

Retrenched employees who are union members will also receive paid NTUC union membership until the end of this year, so that they can continue to be eligible for union membership benefits including union bursary awards, financial relief under NTUC's care and support programmes such as the NTUC Care Fund (e-vouchers) programme, insurance coverage, personal development and training assistance.

 

The announcement comes after a majority-owned unit of Pratt & Whitney, Eagle Services Asia, was called out by NTUC last week for axing workers while it was in the middle of negotiations with several unions.

The unions stepped in to halt the unfair plans to retrench 144 workers at the aircraft maintenance company and renegotiated better outcomes for affected workers.

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story stated that Pratt & Whitney said it was retrenching about 390 staff. The company later clarified that the figure was over 400. 
 

[aaur4man]

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