I was on the corporate staff at United Technologies for five years (I made the company everything it is today, much like I’m doing with Hartford Business Journal now), where I accumulated a wad of 401(k) cash and preferred stock and stuff.
The chauffer, the butler, the big house in the suburbs — I owe it all to my UTC account, which I have watched grow like the dandelions of spring.
I have also lived in Connecticut for many years, and I’ve grown to like the place (it’s hard to “love” a place that doesn’t let you buy wine in grocery stores) and want it to prosper and grow like the dandelions of spring.
I seem to have conflicting allegiances. Much as I would like to see Connecticut become the Lichtenstein of New England, full of rich, happy, docile citizens, I don’t want Connecticut to succeed to the detriment of UTC, the state’s largest private employer and home to Cohen and his 401(k).
Not that anyone was listening, but for years, George David, the former CEO of UTC, wandered the state, explaining that while he was comfortable with Connecticut as the home for UTC’s corporate staff and R&D and certain engineering stuff, he was not inclined to do much more manufacturing and metal-banging in a state that treated such stuff as a cash register to be raided and abused.
That was good news for Cohen’s 401(k). The accident of geography and history that saw a giant, international manufacturer, operating in competitive markets around the world, actually building things in Connecticut, home to greedy Democrats and coddled labor unions, was a puzzlement and a drag on profits.
So, now, with UTC’s Pratt & Whitney unit poised to whack 1,000 jobs in Cheshire and East Hartford, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell offering all manner of government handout, subsidy and good will to keep things as they are, who does Cohen root for?
State Treasurer Denise Nappier has a similar dilemma. As keeper of the state’s pension fund, she holds a wad of UTC stock almost as large as the Cohen portfolio. She has growled at UTC executives, threatening to pull the plug, unless they make the wrong, er, the right, decision and stay in expensive Connecticut. Good for Connecticut? Bad for the portfolio? Whose side is Denise on?
While directing the staff to wash my limo, I tend to want to cheer for the UTC accountants and investor relations team. Get that engine repair plant out of here and move it somewhere warm and happy and cheap. UTC will prosper and, in an odd way, Connecticut will prosper as well since Cohen is not the only guy in the state sitting on a suitcase full of UTC stock.
Whatever little basket of goodies might entice Pratt to keep the targeted facilities around a bit longer, in the end, the tax-and-spend, labor-union loving legislature will make the manufacturing environment miserable.
On the other hand, if the Pratt & Whitneys all go away, Connecticut’s few remaining factory towns could become factory towns with no factories.
In the end, of course, I vote for tawdry self-interest, for vacations in the south of France.
Beyond Cohen, of course there is the public policy question of whether Connecticut should be targeting particular companies for subsidy and tax break, to soften a harsh environment created by the very folks now attempting to “fix’ the problem.
For government to throw money at a healthy, successful company, in order to foster bad decisions and prop up labor unions, leads to decline, leads to stagnation, leads to further government intervention.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
Reader response:
“Hey I guess that means the budget is no longer balanced. What a joke Connecticut has become, all thanks to the criminal class of Republicans and Democrats.” — Tien Kou
