The furor over Pratt & Whitney’s possible transfer of work done at the East Hartford-based Connecticut Airfoil Repair Operations and Cheshire Engine Center to facilities in Georgia, Japan, and Singapore offered a teachable moment to state policymakers.

The moment quickly passed. Pols preferred to stick with what they always do when jobs flee the state: mug before television cameras, holler free trade-bashing nonsense at rallies, and devise a taxpayer-financed "incentive package."

Their approach might prevail this time, and save 1,000 workers from the unemployment line. But without meaningful changes to the laws and regulations governing commerce in Connecticut, the forces driving businesses from the state will remain irresistible.

Three lessons need to be learned from the Pratt imbroglio. The first is that relying on Connecticut’s vaunted "skilled workers" to overcome the absurdly high cost of making a buck here is a big mistake.

There is "no way," sniffed a International Association of Machinists official, that the company "can expect to hire a workforce in Columbus, Georgia, and train ‘em, and get ‘em to do the quality and productive work that’s currently done" in Connecticut. Maybe, but Pratt thinks otherwise, and it’s safe to assume that the company has done more research on the matter than the union.

Nutmeggers may still consider themselves the best and the brightest, but fewer and fewer employers agree. In 2007, Barnes Aerospace, a division of Bristol-based Barnes Group Inc. chose to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Utah. The company explained that the Ogden region’s "highly skilled, dedicated workforce" was an attraction. Pratt’s parent company, United Technologies Corporation, regularly relocates to and expands in states many Connecticut citizens consider backward — Sikorsky Aircraft opened a design center in Montana in 2006, as well as facilities in Texas in 2005 and 2007.

A refusal to enact meaningful reforms of government schools is surely a factor in the decline of education in Connecticut. Other states have embraced charter schools, tuition tax credits, and tougher academic standards. Locked in the thrall of teacher unions, the governor, legislators, and school districts won’t budge. The "bumpkins" are beating Connecticut at its own game, and as a result, luring enterprises away.

The second lesson is that companies belong to their shareholders, not their workers. If Pratt can save a staggering 40 percent on labor, energy, and taxes by shifting work to Georgia, it has an obligation to do so.

Since the great Wall Street bust began in 2007, UTC’s stock has performed better than the Dow. While many blue chips — Boeing, General Electric, Bank of America — lost half their value or more, UTC’s share price dropped by 26 percent. Unlike many publicly traded multinationals, the company raised its dividend, and that’s welcome news for people whose retirement incomes are tied to owning, directly or indirectly, its stock.

If Connecticut’s refusal to lower taxes, pass a right-to-work law, and cut electricity rates through true deregulation costs Pratt, bigtime, the company would be committing corporate malpractice if it didn’t leave.

Finally, Pratt’s dalliance with Georgia in addition to Asian locations debunks a treasured myth of protectionists — that America is "deindustrializing." The tired refrain that the U.S. "doesn’t make anything anymore" is belied by hard data. According to Daniel J. Ikenson of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies: "American real manufacturing value-added … reached a record-high level in 2007 … breaking the record set in 2006, which broke the record set in 2005, which broke the record set in 2004." (In the last few decades, several states, including North Dakota, Idaho, and Nevada, have seen increased manufacturing employment.)

While the U.S. is bereft of assembly lines for shoes and toys, it continues to manufacture high-end products such as satellites, turbines, and helicopters. But the untold success story of globalization involves services, where the nation enjoys a surplus. "Economic growth in emerging economies such as China and India has spurred demand for professional services such as advertising and legal services as more local businesses seek to enter and compete in new markets," reports the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Connecticut is well-positioned to take advantage of the growing service-export market. Too bad the state’s political establishment prefers to bash free trade, thus jeopardizing its constituents’ opportunities to market their skills abroad.

The loss of 1,000 quality jobs at a longtime Connecticut employer is a stark reminder that barring an immediate return to pro-growth policies, employers have no choice but to flee to friendlier places. It’s the smart thing to do. And it’s their duty.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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