Sikorsky plant in Alabama OKs union pact

Workers at the Troy, Ala., Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. plant overwhelming have ratified a new collective bargaining agreement that includes an initial pay raise and guaranteed increases for the next four years.

The Alabama newspaper The Dothan Eagle carried the announcement.

The vote was 340 in favor and 10 against.

A Teamsters Local Union 1150 officer said the new agreement calls for a wage increase of 70 cents per hour effective immediately and a guaranteed wage increase of 2.5 percent each year for the next four years, the Eagle reported. The union officer said other contract details included $4,000 in ratification money paid over two years and no changes in insurance plans/premiums until 2016.

Stratford-based Sikorsky employs about 540 people at the Alabama plant and is the largest private-sector employer in Fairfield County, with about 2,000 employees.

Sikorsky has operations on five continents, occupying 6 million square feet of building space, including about 2.6 million square feet of manufacturing space. It maintains helicopter-based relations with the governments of China and Turkey and runs third-party service centers in South Korea and the U.K. It has another agreement to explore opening an aviation facility in Qatar.