Esterline Technologies Corp. of Bellvue, Wash. closed the 80-year-old Haskon plant in Taunton on October 26, moving much of the work to plants in California and Mexico. The company did not move the plant’s machinery, and never intended to do so. So while negotiating over severance benefits, UE Local 204 hired a consulting firm to help it develop a plan to reopen the plant as a new independent company serving the small-business segment of the aircraft sealant market.
Retaining the plant equipment was central to workers’ effort to relaunch the business. Since Esterline announced in December 2009 that it planned to close Haskon, the union sought the corporation’s cooperation to spin off the plant as an independent company, but Esterline refused. Esterline originally scheduled the auction of the plant’s equipment for December 14, 2010. (Esterline never owned the plant building, which it leased.) The union was backed by city and state elected officials as well as members of Congress in demanding that Esterline delay the auction until February 15 to give employees time to consolidate plans to restart the plant. The company delayed the auction only until January 19.
On December 7, 2010 Taunton City Council unanimously approved a home rule petition to the state legislature seeking authority to take, by right of eminent domain, the presses and equipment at Haskon. This action was requested by the union to enable the union and investors to purchase the equipment to restart the plant. But the Massachusetts legislative does not reconvene until January 21, and so the legislature would not be able to act on the city’s petition until at least two days after the scheduled auction date.