GE Aerospace Unions Rally For Fair Contract & Workers Rights As Trade War Disruption Looms

IUE-CWA Workers Across the U.S. Stand in Solidarity with Aerospace Workers Worldwide in May Day Celebration

LYNN, MA, UNITED STATES, May 2, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- On May Day 2025, IUE-CWA Local 201 hosted delegations of GE Aerospace workers from Kentucky, New York, and Tennessee in Lynn, MA to prepare for upcoming negotiations with the company, which manufactures and repairs military and commercial aviation engines critical to the U.S. military and civilian aviation. GE Aerospace's major customers include the Pentagon, U.S. military allies, and airlines worldwide who use Boeing, as well as Airbus, Bombardier and Embraer planes.

A two-year contract extension between GE Aerospace and its major U.S. labor unions expires on June 25, with bargaining set to begin on June 2.

IUE-CWA members participated in an informational picket outside of the factory gates and later joined the local community’s May Day march to defend workers’ rights, U.S. and foreign born, which are increasingly under attack from corporate interests and the Trump Administration.

IndustriALL, the global union federation representing aviation manufacturing unions across five continents, sent a letter of support to IUE-CWA, which represents more than 2,300 GE Aerospace workers at five U.S. facilities. In addition, IUE-CWA has a strong relationship with leading Italian union FIOM-CGIL, which also sent a solidarity message to IUE-CWA on May Day. The world’s aerospace unions will meet in Canada in mid-June to discuss shared challenges.

In preparation for negotiations, IUE-CWA GE Aerospace members are mobilizing around key bargaining demands, including: fair wages that keep pace with the cost of living, improved working conditions and respect for workers’ rights, ensure secure retirements for former, current and future workers, guarantee affordable, reliable health insurance for all, and investment in U.S. plants to protect jobs.

“On May Day, we celebrate solidarity among working people everywhere and prepare to win a strong contract for IUE-GE workers,” said Adam Kaszynski, President of IUE-CWA Local 201. “We stand united—across GE Aerospace, across Lynn, across this country and the world—because we all face the same corporate pressures and financial elites. We will not give in. Solidarity is what makes us strong."

“We need to end the race to the bottom that giant corporations like GE have forced on workers and communities by pitting us against each other. That means fair labor contracts, fair trade and investment, job protections, and an end to the billions of dollars in GE stock buybacks and financial engineering drained from the company at the expense of workers, communities and customers in order to make the rich richer.” said Jerry Carney, IUE-CWA GE Conference Chair.

In addition to contract negotiations, IUE-CWA union workers have gathered thousands of signatures requesting that Congress and the White House pause GE’s offshoring of military jet engine production to India’s HAL until its negative effects on U.S. jobs and industrial base can be remedied and new production lines are opened in IUE represented plants. The IUE-CWA wants to avoid another round of destructive offshoring that eliminates good union jobs.

After years of offshoring and under investment, workers are looking to gain new work on GE Aerospace’s newer generation of engines. On the commercial side GE Aerospace announced it received commitments for hundreds of engines from several Asian airlines. Additionally GE announced it has received a F110 contract from the U.S. Air Force valued up to $5 billion, and completed the initial ground runs for the T901 engine on U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter as well as completed a detailed design review for the XA102 engine.

After posting over $6.5 billion in profits on $38.7 billion in revenue in 2024, GE Aerospace continues to report solid profits, revenues and cash flow into the first quarter of 2025. However, escalating trade wars launched by the Trump Administration are clouding the company’s outlook. Steel and aluminum duties and tariffs on plane parts are a definite concern, and on April 21,2025 China retaliated by sending Boeing planes back to the USA, instructing its airlines to shun the U.S. plane-maker.

Meanwhile, Italian workers are striking GE Avio Aereo (which has 5,000 employees, mostly in Italy) and other employers as part of their metal workers contract renewal fight. Adequate cost of living adjustments and fair pay are sticking points in those negotiations. Achieving labor peace in GE’s American facilities could reduce some of the uncertainty in what are sure to remain very volatile times for the aviation giant.

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