Poland’s Gain: America’s Loss

Here’s another case of corporate outsourcing greed. The famous and battle tested Sikorsky Blackhawk helicopter’s new variant built for the military units of America’s allies are now being made in Poland.

In a time of economic uncertainty and financial crisis across our great country, you would think the manufacturing of high tech military aircraft costing as much as $10 million per copy would be best kept at home. But, there must be a rational reason why the workhorse of non-fixed wing military aircraft are rolling off the production line at the PZL plant in Mielec, Poland.

Why didn’t the largest economic stimulus package in the history of our country stem the tide of the iconic American flying machine from going overseas to be manufactured?

During the Great Depression at least there was something to be shown for the dollars spent by government to improve the lot of laid off and unemployed workers. Right here in Toledo the WPA put hundreds if not thousands of men to work. Those shovel ready projects gave us a marvelous main branch library, the high level bridge, the zoo’s amphitheater, the Glass Bowl and numerous improvements to the Metro Park System. Each project was a functional and practical addition to the Infrastructure of Toledo providing benefits even years after the recovery from breadlines, failed banking institutions, children skipping school to hustle for pennies to help their impoverished families and all the other hurt and misery inflected upon an overwhelming portion of the population. 

Today, Poland is the benefactor of a failed U.S. government stimulus and a failed economic policy. More than 2,000 highly skilled Poles have been added to the Sikorsky subsidiary of United Technologies aerospace workforce with the potential for thousands more filling jobs in the industry sector if Boeing’s plans to open up shop come to fruition.

Infrastructure expansion and rehabilitation undertakings would be a welcomed scheme for getting people back to work in America since the U6 unemployment number is hovering around 16 percent. But, why in the world would our government permit the production of military weapon systems with highly sensitive designs and components to be assembled offshore when a workforce of equally skilled aerospace engineers and technicians are stateside collecting 99 weeks of unemployment checks that are financed by deficit spending?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Poland named Sikorsky its "Investor of the Year", when they acquired the PZL Mielec factory and turned it into a state-of-the-art facility. The award is given to a firm that has achieved impressive growth, visibility, and a significant breakthrough in the Polish market, demonstrating its long-term commitment and its contribution to the labor market.

According to a press release, nearly 8,000 employees at United Technologies owned Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky divisions make UT Poland’s largest aviation industry employers. The strategic investments of money, know-how and state-of-the-art technologies add significantly to Poland's proud aviation tradition among global companies.

Production of the highly advanced helicopters in Mielec will have tremendous effects on numerous other Polish aviation entities. In the short term, economic and export benefits will accrue from parts sourcing, increased labor, technology transfer and sales to allied armed forces. In the long-term, Sikorsky is evaluating other Polish firms and institutes that will serve as completion centers, sustainment and parts-management centers, in addition to certification institutes who will matriculate 200 future hires per year.



Igor Sikorsky

 Sikorsky maintained it would increase its profit margins by moving work to Poland and they have been moving aggressively to redistribute production into Poland. Cost reduction and low-cost sourcing is meant to transform and improve profit margins in the coming years.

A government official said, “Sikorsky has stimulated the development of Poland's aviation industry so much that Boeing sent decision makers to look at potential plant locations in Gdańsk, Rzeszów (the historic home of Polish aviation), and Bielsko-Biala.” A decision might be coming in two or three months.

With lower taxes, unimpeding regulations, unencumbered labor agreements, efficient supply chains, and highly skilled workforce; Poland is using its entrepreneurial advantages to its benefit. Poland was the only EU country showing back-to-back years of GDP growth through the economic meltdown. Without stimulus, subsidies, bailouts, or healthcare waivers it’s looking more and more like the flowerbed of industrial growth that once was the hallmark of America.

While critics still make arguments about corporate greed for profit and other rewards, perhaps they are overlooking a more serious type of greed that seems to be absent in Poland since the end of the communist era – the greed of people looking for so-called entitlements handed out by various national governments in disproportionate measure rather than depending on the independent, self-reliant work ethic Poles are known for, which is becoming more apparent to global producers of goods everyday.

In the past decade, Poland has become the European center for the manufacture of luxury yachts as discussed in last month’s column. Perhaps they’ll become the center for aviation as well. At least it is apparent that Poland knows how to make globalization work for her people instead of being sublimated by it.

(SIDE BAR)

Sikorsky’s contribution to the industrial might of America



Sikorsky with Orville Wright

 Igor Sikorsky was born in Russian occupied Kiev in 1889 and comes from a lineage of Ukrainian nobility and szlachta (Polish nobility). As a youth he studied the technical exploits of Leonardo di Vinci and the imaginative writings of Jules Verne. Even before enrolling in academies and polytechnic institutes in Europe, Sikorsky was knowledgeable in the designs of the Wright Brothers flying machine and Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s rigid airship.

After migrating to the United States during the Bolshevik revolution his credentials pertaining to his designs for fighters and the first multi engine bombers attracted investment capital to start his own aviation company, which built the S-42 flying boat for Pan Am allowing the first transoceanic commercial passenger service.

He perfected the helicopter design in 1939 and started mass production of rotor aircraft in the early 1940s.

Sikorsky was a devout Orthodox Christian and authored two religious and philosophical books entitled “The Message of the Lord’s Prayer” and “The Invisible Encounter”.

His company was absorbed by what is now United Technologies Corporation in 1929 eventually becoming the world’s largest manufacturer of helicopters.


Sea King & White Hawk


Since 1957, the “Marine One” helicopter fleet of the President of the United States has been comprised of Sikorsky helicopters exclusively. Two different designs are in service today. The VH-3D “Sea King” and the newer VH-60N “White Hawk”. Both were due to be replaced by an entirely new non-Sikorsky built chopper, but due to excessive cost the project was shelved.