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Colt Firearm’s Florida Move Has UAW Job-Killers In Connecticut Worried

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  December 12th, 2011 at 01:45 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

As Connecticut continues to shoot itself in its foot (so to speak), job creators are rightfully beginning to look elsewhere for locales that do not view businesses as cannon fodder.

Colt Firearms appears to be one of the many Connecticut companies looking for a less hostile home.

To clarify, Florida is a Right-to-Work state and Connecticut is not. Which may be why the UAW is so concerned about keeping jobs in the anti-business state:.

via The Miami Herald:

The United Auto Workers says employees of Colt Firearms in West Hartford were distressed to learn that the gun manufacturer is opening a manufacturing plant in central Florida and are worried about their jobs.

The union said in a news release Monday that it is assuring members it will do what it can to keep the company and its 500 jobs in Connecticut.

[snip]

Colt Manufacturing Co. announced earlier this month it is bringing 63 jobs and a new regional headquarters and product manufacturing center to Kissimmee, Fla., next year.

Of course, Colt’s move may also have more to do with the hostile nature Connecticut has toward businesses, or the largest tax increase in the state’s history that was just imposed in June.

Note to union bosses: When you bite the hand that feeds you by continually pushing anti-business policies, don’t be so surprised when that hand begins to feed someone else.

Related:

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted at LaborUnionReport.com

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COMMENTS

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  • Marcus_Traianus

    The state of Connecticut is notoriously anti-gun. Many of Colt’s products can not even be sold in their home state. That’s embarrassing.

    Take one of Colt’s newest products, the SP-901. Shooters across the market are clamoring to buy the rifle. But residents in Colt’s home state (and state’s such as New York) will not be able to purchase it due to draconian, ill-conceived ‘AWB” type laws.

    Trying to meet needs of those states will force Colt to re-tool at significant cost. Not that moving to Florida will solve that issue, but it sends a signal to states who are missing out on a booming market. If their products are not welcome in that host state, the jobs will go elsewhere.

    So state’s can choose; senseless laws base on false premises that do nothing to improve gun safety and pushed by anti-gun liberals or jobs.

    Add in the labor situation and it’s a pretty easy choice, especially nowadays.

  • wolfgang

    …when not only Colt, but Chandler Evans, Pratt and Whitney Small Tool, Hamilton, Otis Elevator, Sikorski, and P&WA say sayonara to Connecticut’s taxes?
    Its sort of the David Axelrod envisioned Obama re election coalition created via taxation of Hispanics, African Americans, college educated Liberal intelligentsia, and perverts with the white, working class Americans thrown under Obama’s Canadian made bus.

  • uselogic

    We’re happy you’re moving some of your operations down here to sunny Central Florida. You’ll find fine folks, hard-working employees and plenty of fellow shooters to purchase your products. Golf courses, theme parks and oh yeah…..no union mandate or state income tax. Bring your business friends down too. We’ll treat them just as well.

    Now if we could just export some of our tax-and-spend, social justice liberals up to CT, it’d be an even better trade-off

  • greyeagle

    Weather is great. Your company will find a large number of people have license to carry. There are numerous shooting ranges, good schools reasonable property and several large healthcare systems to provide medical care for your family. So tell your friends and other businesses to come on down.

    • ELIMN8U

      Anyone have a number or e-mail address to inquire as to getting an application….would love to move to warmer climate myself!!!

  • snowshooze

    Firearms have been in international competiton for a long time.
    Colt has a reputation, but if you have to battle with labor that is less than half your own…it get’s really tough.
    There is still hope for an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work in Florida.
    Good for them, they are keeping their people working.

    • shyamg22

      Do the European big boys of H&K, Glock, and Sig Sauer produce any guns in America? I know Glock produces most of their weapons in Austria I believe and H&K pieces are some of the most expensive in their class but they seem to survive the high european labour cost and high go-to-market prices.

      I am all for companies trying to reduce their cost of business but at some point the ‘competing on price’ mentality has to be reduced. This is my primary issue with American car manufacturers vs. their European and Japanese counterparts.

      I don’t know much about the firearm manufacturing business however or where Colt stands in today’s market other than their historical significance.

  • cavvet

    are mamufactured in Austria then shipped to Georgia to be assembled for U.S. sales.

    • jiminga

      is pretty impressive, and employs a lot of Americans in another right-to-work state. Everyone there is very professional and their lifetime warranty is observed with quiet efficiency, even while you wait if you’re local.

  • republicanconscience

    Not only is Florida business friendly, it has great weather. We haven’t had power outages for 3 weeks at a time like CT and never have snow closings.

    I left NJ over 3 years ago because I did not want to be the last person left to pay all the taxes.

    BTW – when Florida’s Ports initiative is complete, I expect the auto manufacturers to be looking real close at Florida, UAW is out-dated and until it is abolished those states that condone them, AKA the Rust Belt, will continue to lose jobs, and by 2020 lose more congressional seats making the entire region look like Detroit.

  • renny

    even though Christie is trying to claim his admin. has made the state more business friendly, even the public unions are keeping people from working.

    Camden cut half of its police force. It held job fairs for Memphis and Nashville for its displaced employees. Because of that horror, the development my son lives in is full of houses no one can sell, and his house is now worth $100,000 less than he paid for (at what then seemed a bargain price) two years ago. The little o ec. at work.

    My best college students, ones who even student taught in large districts, cannot get interviews. One has been hired “under the table” by her principal who can make her a permanent sub and now a pemanent basic skills “team facilitator” on his own, but she has never been interviewed by the central administraion and offered a full teacher’s contract.

    Budgets are tight. NO one is hiring. Meanwhile, I heard a “colleague” complain Monday that the high school got out at 1:50, but she couldn’t leave like “every one else,” as she had outside bus duty. She could not leave regardless, because the contract runs till 2:30 pm, and technically, no professional staff should be vacating the premises until then. She should whine. There are 1000s who would love to spend 10 minutes on a bus duty till 2 pm, if they could only get hired.

  • duncer

    The UAW give nearly all of its financial support to democrats, the democrats are overwhelmingly anti gun. colt workers fund the UAW. The union always refers to “our jobs” as though they had a property right to employment at facilities built and owned by others. The company chose to hire them, the company did not chose their union. The company can shut down the whole operation or move it to another state or another country or even go out of the business. I wonder how many of the workers vote for the party that supports gun rights and the right to work without giving part of your pay to a union that is trying to put your employer out of business.

  • rulken

    It appears that the only serving, the labor unions have done in the last few decades is themselves! They could care less about those that they are really suppose to serve. Somewhere around the late fifties and early sixties laws were passed to protect most of the common workers through out the United States, and this left no real reason for the continued existence of big labor unions.
    Oh but they did continue,,, and they made ridicules demands on the Big Auto workers, steel workers, Rail Road employees, only to mention a few. They found the mother-load, when they were able to wiggle their way into government. Something that never should have been allowed, but as greedy congressman and senators were paid off, big unions were able to find their way into almost every government service that existed, and secured their existence there by garnishing votes from all the government workers those unions represented.
    Of course every state should be a right to work state. There should be no demands made on workers to join any union.

  • rulken

    Companies that want skilled labor are willing to compensate those workers accordingly to the degree of their skills.
    There are already laws on the books that prevent companies from over working their work force, unions are no longer needed to get these protections, their usefulness is no longer needed as in the past.
    Companies will seek those workers out and make them fair offers to go to work for them.
    I know this to be true from my own experiences.
    When a good wage of $12.00 to 15.00 was sought after, I was able to be lured away by the promise of $20.00 to $30.00 plus a terrific benefit package! All because I had the talent and knowledge of a RV Technician! All they were really interested in was my work ethic and the extent of my experience in that field.
    I didn’t need to pay a union to get a job, and I didn’t need a union to keep one! “An honest days pay for an honest days work.” Didn’t your mom or dad ever tell you that?

  • a-b

    Howdy Colt ……….
    Please keep Arizona in mind. We’d be glad to have ya! … and, as someone originally born and raised in the New England area, I can promise that you and perhaps even some of your current employees would love it here.
    Personally, you couldn’t pay me to live in Connecticut or any of the other liberal New England States. Heck, even NH, the last bastion of freedom in the area has now been corrupted by those moving there from Conn., MA, NY, RI, etc.

    Lookin’ forward to seeing you here!
    signed – an American patriot

  • paladin1

    Thank goodness you are escaping the northeast morass! I love your pistlos and freedom from the union garbage will undoubtedly increase the quality; it generally does when job retention rests on job performance!

    P.S.: Check with Governor Perry before you become set on Florida though-we are a great market for Colts of all types and we love business here in Texas.

    • paladin1

      nt

  • hendrig

    What are the job killers worried about? Since Florida is a Right to Work state, the unions can just have their buddy Obama do to Colt what he did to Boeing. Just close the plant after they build it. Problem solved.

    • gunslingr45

      if that does not work, newt will sign bad gun control bills if he becomes prez!

      “For those who have fought for it freedom has a sweet taste the protected will never know”

  • hitthedeck

    This affirms it is the private business sector that knows how to spread the wealth by its conservative approach of doing business in a right to work state that has a tax base that gives a business room to grow and hire more employees who add to the community growth. The employees get a fair wage and good benefits from a business that is proud of the quality of its products. They are not pitted against their employer and maintain a partnership that makes a great company. The Unions always put a barrier up between the employer and employee that make labor relations bad. Union members know this but are under the heal of Union enforcers who can eliminate their job without interference from the employer.

  • funwithknives

    AND WHAT WILL THEY DO? {The mind reels!}