After strike, Boeing's Seattle future in doubt

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE49S8TS20081029

Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:12pm EDT

By Bill Rigby - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co's (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) future in Seattle is in doubt as it starts to pick up the pieces from the fourth major strike in 20 years by its assembly workers in the area.

"This is the exact opposite of a partnership between management and labor," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia-based aerospace consulting group. "Both sides think the worst of each other. Boeing management's way out of it will be to move."

Boeing has been thinking about abandoning the Puget Sound area around Seattle for 20 years or more. The company moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago in 2001 and came close to locating its 787 Dreamliner assembly plant elsewhere.

In the end, Washington state induced Boeing to stay with a range of tax breaks and special programs. But repeated labor strikes, which have wasted 200 days of production in Seattle plants over the past two decades, have strained relations.

"The depths of the unhappiness of both Boeing with the union and the union people with Boeing just made it impossible for them to sit down and be rational," said Paul Nisbet at aerospace specialists JSA Research, talking about the latest negotiations.

The 27,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers rejected Boeing's first contract offer on September 3, and it has taken almost two months of sporadic talks to hit on a compromise.

FULL story at link.

[Bluzmann57]

1. "...repeated labor strikes

which have wasted 200 days of production..." Now I have to tell you that a statement like that irks me. The management of this company obviously won't bargain in good faith. I was a member of the machinist's Union several years ago and we were updated with Boeing news often. Now I am not going to say that the membership was and is always correct, but what the hell is wrong with trying to make a living swage and wanting the best for our families? Nothing, that's what.
Btw, I wish you luck in your quest to get noticed by Obama for your contributions to Organized Labor.