Rick Haugen started putting aside $20 a week four years ago for this moment, just in case.
The 54-year-old has been with Textron Aviation for 26 years but this is the first time he’s had to go on strike.
A majority of the roughly 5,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 774 voted Sept. 21 to reject the company’s offer and go on strike, which started Monday.
Textron, which makes Beechcraft, Cessna and Hawker planes and jets, is one of the largest employers in Wichita.
Haugen, an interior installer, said they have a huge backlog of work.
“So they need us, so it’s time to pay up,” he said Friday while holding a picket sign among coworkers outside the company’s location just east of Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport.
Strikers are at roughly a dozen areas around Textron’s locations in west and east Wichita.
Workers will lose their health insurance starting Monday, but the union is working to make sure they still have coverage while the strike lasts. The union will start paying workers $200 a week starting the third week of the strike, if it goes that long.