Machinists file with labor board to unionize West Virginia Pratt & Whitney workers

(Reuters) -North America's largest aerospace union has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to represent workers at a Pratt & Whitney engine repair shop in West Virginia, as organizers try to make inroads across southern U.S. states and elsewhere where aerospace companies are growing production.

RTX enginemaker Pratt, rival GE Aerospace, and planemakers Boeing and Airbus are expanding operations in southern U.S. states, such as South Carolina and Alabama. Aircraft startup JetZero recently pledged to open a factory in North Carolina in a $4.7 billion deal backed by big state incentives.

Pratt's investments in a North Carolina facility recently sparked concerns over job security during recent contract talks between Connecticut-based engine maker and its workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

IAM organizers said the petition filed on Tuesday is to represent 360 Pratt workers at the West Virginia plant who want raises and improved working conditions.

"They reached out to us," said IAM organizing director Mike Evans of the workers. RTX declined to comment.

Workers would need to support the move to unionize during a later vote. Support for collective bargaining at the plant in a state where just under 9% of workers are union members would "spread very quickly to the other places that do similar work," IAM associate Lisa Ferm said in an interview. 

But gaining ground in states, such as West Virginia, which has laws that make it harder to unionize, remains a challenge for the IAM. The union has made multiple attempts in the past to organize workers at a Boeing factory in South Carolina and is now running radio ads in the state promoting representation. 

In 2017, a majority of workers rejected union representation at Boeing's 787 plant in South Carolina, which has one of the lowest union membership rates in the United States, at 2.8%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The IAM in December said Boeing South Carolina workers received a 9% standard wage increase and $12,000 bonus as a result of gains secured by unionized workers in Washington State, who reached a deal a month earlier that raised general wages by 38% over four years.

Boeing said in December it plans to invest $1 billion in infrastructure upgrades to its South Carolina 787 jet assembly site and create 500 new jobs over the next five years.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in MontrealEditing by Tomasz Janowski)