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-   -   Bye Bye Boeing in Seattle! (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/engineers-technicians/78242-bye-bye-boeing-seattle.html)

Sum Ting Wong 11-18-2013 04:34 PM


Originally Posted by mike734 (Post 1522806)
The IAM knows Boeing is going to do what ever they want regardless of the outcome of the vote. They were right to hold the line on pay and benefits. Now the gov of Washington is saying the state is going to have to compete to keep Boeing in Washington. The ball is now in Washington's court.

So Washington state is going to subsidize the union to retain noncompetitive union labor wages and demands?
Competitive bidding for selecting manufacturing sites would really be interesting!

mike734 11-18-2013 08:21 PM


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522810)
So Washington state is going to subsidize the union to retain noncompetitive union labor wages and demands?
Competitive bidding for selecting manufacturing sites would really be interesting!

Yes. They had already offered dramatic tax benefits. Now they will have to do a little better. Boeing was stupid the way they outsourced the 787. Now it's time to see if they will be stupid again. My guess is they will.

pete2800 11-18-2013 10:14 PM


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
Who said they were leaving Seattle in it's entirety?

The thread title did.


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
Management chose to minimize the cost of doing business and unions chose to maximize their wages and benefits. It might seem both could have compromised, but Boeing has other choices too - there are workers elsewhere who could choose to work for less than those in WA state.

No, they couldn't have. There's no compromising on an individual basis when your only option is a "yes" or "no" vote. The union leadership let their members down by placing this turd of a deal in front of them. Now we get to see if the two parties can come back to the table and re-negotiate. I'm betting they will. SPEEA voted down an absolute crap-pile of a deal, and re-negotiated another agreement which then passed.


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
Nowhere in Puget Sound can these workers earn a fraction of the money that they can earn at Boeing.

Incorrect. Do you know how much a factory worker at Boeing makes to start? If anyone gets furloughed, it will be the junior people. The low-seniority wages at Boeing are easily made elsewhere.


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
They resisted (I see nothing about their contract being 're-opened, this was for future work). Boeing offered a $10,000 signing bonus, having future retirement monies subject to a defined contribution plan, having to pay higher co-pay amounts for healthcare costs. Apparently the prospect of future work was just too much of a sacrifice for these workers who earn about $60-70,000 per year before overtime and with much vacation time.

There's not as much vacation time as you think there is, and there's not as much money before overtime as you think there is. Also, my health insurance at my regional airline is about on par with what I had when I was on Boeing insurance.


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
They remind me of the unionized autoworkers who felt that they were indispensable until the factories closed and production moved to the South and to Mexico.

Except for the fact that Boeing products made in SC are still coming through Everett for fixes before they are delivered, due to manufacturing issues with the location that has the cheaper workforce.


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
I can understand the frustration of the workers because they bailed out 787 production after management took a McDonnell-Douglas approach to subcontract out nearly all work except for final assembly and that cost the company billions. The workers also kept the cash flowing with record 737 production. when the company needed that cash due to the drain of revenue shortfalls from delayed deliveries, of paying to correct the manufacture of the 787, and of paying penalties to airlines suffering from delayed deliveries.

And the acknowledgement that the outsourcing in the 787 project was a massive failure means that outsourcing the 777X is a legitimate threat....? Or that since Boeing outsourced the 787, then they certainly weren't going to do the same with their next airplane, regardless of the vote?


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
Unfortunately for the Puget Sound machinists, many just voted themselves out of future employment later this decade and beyond. They would have been clever to take this deal as their leverage would have increased once Boeing constructed the 777X in Everett.

How, exactly, would their leverage increased when they're committed to a long-term contract? You can have all of the leverage in the world, but unless you're due for negotiations.... you're bound to the last thing you signed.


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522681)
In any event, the chest-thumping shop stewards who exhorted the "no" vote won't lose their jobs; they never do.

Likely true.




Originally Posted by mike734 (Post 1522961)
Yes. They had already offered dramatic tax benefits. Now they will have to do a little better. Boeing was stupid the way they outsourced the 787. Now it's time to see if they will be stupid again. My guess is they will.

This. If I remember right, the tax breaks Washington offered Boeing amount to something like $500,000,000 per month.

742Dash 11-19-2013 03:52 AM


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522810)
So Washington state is going to subsidize the union to retain noncompetitive union labor wages and demands?
Competitive bidding for selecting manufacturing sites would really be interesting!

Considering the tax cuts that Washington State has given Boeing, the only people left to pay the taxes to support the infrastructure that Boeing uses are the workers.

mike734 11-19-2013 06:35 AM


Originally Posted by 742Dash (Post 1523025)
Considering the tax cuts that Washington State has given Boeing, the only people left to pay the taxes to support the infrastructure that Boeing uses are the workers.

Ha! Excellent point.

Sum Ting Wong 11-19-2013 06:57 AM


Originally Posted by 742Dash (Post 1523025)
Considering the tax cuts that Washington State has given Boeing, the only people left to pay the taxes to support the infrastructure that Boeing uses are the workers.

Really? How many hundreds of millions in Business & Occupation taxes has Washington State collected from Boeing, which is based on receipts, not income?

I think you have it backwards. The tax breaks subsidize union pay. If Boeing takes its business elsewhere, the state stands to lose income tax revenue (from workers, not the corporation) including in-state ancillary companies that depend on Boeing for its revenues.

Sum Ting Wong 11-21-2013 07:42 AM

Seattle City Councilmember-elect shares radical idea with... | www.kirotv.com

"“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night. "

“We can re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines,” she told KIRO 7.

Just more destruction of the manufacturing sector by unions. Time for Boeing to leave Seattle.

johnso29 11-21-2013 11:45 AM


Originally Posted by Sum Ting Wong (Post 1522245)

It appears some of Boeing's biggest customers are against that.


Emirates Airlines has urged Boeing to build the 777X and its components in the US to avoid the issues that bedeviled the 787, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“Tim Clark, president of Emirates, said Boeing should assemble the 777X family in its own facilities to better manage the process and deliver the aircraft on time in 2020,” The WSJ wrote.

“‘All we said to [Boeing] was, ‘Please don’t do to 777X what you did to the [787],’” Mr. Clark said in an interview on the sidelines of the Dubai Air Show, adding that outsourcing the manufacture-and-build process to companies in Asia or Europe might mean Boeing loses quality and control of assembly. “Don’t do that to us,” he said,” The WSJ wrote.

“Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al Akbar similarly expressed a desire that Boeing assemble the 777X at a single U.S. facility. “Frankly, we would rather everything was built in one place, and I think Boeing from the 787 experience have learnt a lesson,” he said in an interview Tuesday,” reported The Journal.

There is broad consensus that Boeing’s Everett plant is the best place to build the 777X, given its experienced workforce, a mature factory and the continuing challenges of the Charleston 787 plant. But Boeing CEO Jim McNerney’s antipathy toward the IAM specifically and the Washington State business climate generally are “wild cards,” a source familiar with the dynamics tells us.

Timbo 11-21-2013 04:26 PM

So I'm wathcing the evening new tonight, and after they show the Dream Lifter lifing off from the 6100' runway, the go to a story about how the Seattle Times placed an add, asking Boeing to please build the 777X in Seattle.

Front and center on the add, with the words wrapped around it, is a big picture of an airplane...an Airbus 320!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1525007

"The ad, which prominently displays the logo of the Washington Aerospace Partnership, a coalition of business, labor and government groups championing the industry, urges state lawmakers to pass a large-scale roads and transit tax package that Boeing executives have said would make the state a more desirable venue for future projects.
Airbus officials confirmed the plane depicted in the ad is an A320 but declined further comment."

Sum Ting Wong 11-21-2013 08:03 PM

About as brilliant as the DNC using images of Russian ships in their 2012 convention tribute to the US Navy.


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