On February 1, 2024, Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of the aerospace conglomerate Raytheon Technologies, held a hiring event at Biltmore Square in Asheville, NC. As previously identified by the local organization Reject Raytheon, which formed in 2020 to protest the development of the Pratt & Whitney aerospace manufacturing center in south Buncombe County, this manufacturing center is expected to contribute to military operations carried out by the United States around the world.
The activists who gathered on February 1 sought to draw attention to the controversial relationship between Buncombe County officials and the military defense contractor, and to oppose the ongoing work of the Pratt & Whitney facility.
The following statement was submitted to the Asheville Free Press.
On February 1st a group of individuals took action to disrupt a hiring event for war-profiteers Pratt and Whitney. While wined and dined by the Hilton hotel in the tourist trap of Biltmore Square Park, interviewees were informed that they would work for a cooperation who makes money from murder. A trinity of hired goons of Hilton, Biltmore Farms, and the Buncombe County Sheriff aggressively tried to stop the noise of folks trying to warn potential workers. Noise makers evaded arrest, but it was made clear that corporations and their police are scared of their brutal regime being threatened.
Pratt & Whitney is a subsidiary of Raytheon (RTX) the second largest corporation in the behemoth of the US military industry and global merchant of genocide. Pratt & Whitney now owns and operates a 1.2 million square foot facility built on former forest to make engine parts for war planes in the Bent Creek area south of Asheville. In a back door grift and $27 million in tax incentives the county, Biltmore Farms, and Pratt and Whitney, the will of the people was bypassed and Asheville is poised to become a center of genocidal manufacturing.
Pratt and Whitney will keep hiring and more war factories will be built if we don’t stop them. Banish the blood brokers! Stop the bombs! Abolish the police!
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