One thought you don't print: 787 is FUBAR!Boeing can save carbon footprint (energy costs) shipping sub-par parts here to re-work/re-make
them adds to excessive cost over-runs.
Let Boeing own their fuck-up elsewhere keep that stink away from our workers. Boeing has been building there for years, was that just going to go to waste? Keep these jobs here, let them have those jobs there.
OF COURSE their unions sit-down sweetened the pot on the eastern seaboard, and why not? There will be plenty of 747, 767, 777 parts & planes on order for years, leaving enough for our workforce to prove their worth for future efforts that do NOT include a plane that will NOT FLY.
In the long term, this is not nearly as bad for all parties as a sensationalist journalist might prefer it to be. Use your head, not your other-less-than-useful-parts.

Hey, all my parts are useful.

Boeing Management has a very very very bad track record - every time they outsource or part out production, they never meet their goals just revise them downwards and extend the production to delivery lag.

This is why I sold my shares in them and bought Embraer SA (never can spell it, don't care tho).

Blah, blah, blah. Boeing is just SO 70s! (Back when Seattle was a dumpy little place no onen wanted to live.) If Boeing wants to fuck the machinists then more power to them. I'm sure everyone at The Stranger believes that these people deserve their ridiculously inflated salaries and lucrative benefits. Cry me a fucking river.

Don't let Brendan see this!

Hooray! a smart pro-union article! Kudos, Stranger!

Jake:
Please don't write any more business stories.
It's quite evident that you're out of your league in writing about things you know little about.
You really don't get it, do you?
You're a terrible business writer.
Don't take this personally.
Maybe you can write some movie reviews or something for the Stranger...

I'm mystified how someone could look a move to cut costs, and thereby increase profits, as a "fuck you" to anyone.

It's a business decision. It was made by accountants. If they believed that the net cost would be lower in Washington, they would have stayed, union or no.

Like it or hate it, this is pure profit motive. And last I looked, even Boeing's most disgruntled employees have a vested interest in the company being profitable.

There is more to it than just labor costs and diversifying production to reduce the risk of strikes. There is also a very important political part that was revealed in the recent tanker wrangling with EADS. EADS was getting total republican support on the Hill. The deal puts 2 southern senators in Boeing's column.

I'm not going to say Boeing's management is making a good decision - lord knows why they originally decided to head up their newest plane with a salesman, not an engineer - but you can't say that the union's a victim. Seriously? Let's just look at the national landscale - GM, Chrysler - both FORCED into bankruptcy because the union wasn't willing to take a pay cut. Now, Boeing is moving more and more non-union.

It IS down to dollars and cents. Boeing is anticipating expanding SC to 6400 employees, and they'll be making, literally about half the hourly wages that Union machinists here do. HALF. That's not even counting overtime pay savings.

The union at this rate will be blaming ever company for screwing them over until there are no more IAM members working for companies anymore. Who will they blame then?

If unions want to remain relevant, they need to understand that the reason managers hate unions is because they cost a lot. Make that worth their while, and they'll shut up. When someone else comes along and offers a better price, sometimes you gotta cutt off a few slices of bread so that you can keep the rest of the loaf. Too bad the Union's more interested in cutting off their nose to spite their face.

I agree with Nuclear Marc on the point of this albotross. I think that this plane will be a succesful testbed of technologies for the next series. As for a commercial product, let SC have this short lived experiment. "Loyalty's" a double edged sword. If they need to bail on SC, they will. There's no agreement a corporate attorney can't weasle out of...

manofoar: Since when do union workers design and market products that ultimatley fail? You make the case of the auto makers but fail to mention that thier marketing and design strategies were whoefully inadequate. Ask Mr. Mullaly at Ford. He sure as hell didn't make your list. If I recall, he was the last person to head a winning airplane at, ugh, BOEING! Hey, can you work this weekend? Those stinkin' union guys came up with the weekend off thing... Didn't think so.

Maybe Boeing management simply got tired of the loathsome traffic in King County and acknowledged that the city and state will do nothing to improve. We can't even build a monorail for less than $11 billion.

7GT - you're totally right that what they were trying to sell to the public was total crap. But at the same time, if the company's broke, you can' expect them to still pay full wages. Broke's broke. You can either take a cut and keep a job, or the company goes out of business. The union should have worked WITH management to help solve the problem, not be part of it.

7GT - you're totally right that what they were trying to sell to the public was total crap. But at the same time, if the company's broke, you can' expect them to still pay full wages. Broke's broke. You can either take a cut and keep a job, or the company goes out of business. The union should have worked WITH management to help solve the problem, not be part of it.

Who the hell is Jake Blumgart, and why should I care what he thinks?

The key is four strikes in the past seven contract negotiations. It's not so much that Boeing is saying "Fuck you" to the union. It's more of a "We can't take it any more."

The response to an oppressive monopoly is to try to find alternatives. Boeing feels about the union the same way iPhone users feel about AT&T. Boeing found an alternative. Next year iPhone users will have an alternative. Would anyone want it different?

Good article, Jake. Nice to see you caring about issues and getting people talking.

Also, who the hell is Man in the Street, and why should I care what he thinks?

Since you can check what kind of aircraft you'll be flying before making that reservation, I think I'll start looking for Airbus products. Why support a stupidly-run company with in increasingly inferior product just to "Buy American"?

"This is a strategic business decision for us, for our long-term competitiveness." Leach went on to say that no regional jobs would be lost.
>Bull Fucking Shit! This is how it starts, folks. And I, for one, don't want to fly on any plane that was put together my some non-professional non-Union machinist.

Is anyone noticing that production schedules, production quality, and the move to Chicago all came after Boeing was overrun by McDonnell-Douglas management? Is that a coincidence or what????

My company took a huge hit after 9/11. We eventually went into bankruptcy. They took my retirement and 60% of my pay. Payroll costs, competitiveness, blah, blah, blah... If you took the figure they gained from all this, guess how long it took to burn through that cash... SIX MONTHS. Don't think for minute that management isn't the one aiming the gun. It didn't hurt for our CEO took a 1/2 Million dollar bonus while sticking it to the taxpayer ( PBGC ) for our retirement. Cry me a f*%^#'n river Chicago... You don't know what your life would be like without a Union.

Yeah let's all make fun of southerners for being poor and uneducated and then complain once companies flee our our state which enjoys an unsustainably high standard of living and subsequent snob factor. Tough cookies bitches.

"The response to an oppressive monopoly is to try to find alternatives. Boeing feels about the union the same way iPhone users feel about AT&T. Boeing found an alternative. Next year iPhone users will have an alternative. Would anyone want it different?"

What a creatively hip way of humanizing (and normalizing) brutal business ethnic and greed.

"Jake:
I can't argue against what you wrote, so I will proceed to conduct ad hominem attacks like a child.
It's quite evident that you're out of your league in writing about things you know little about.
You really don't get it, do you?
You're a terrible business writer.
Don't take this personally.
Maybe you can write some movie reviews or something for the Stranger. I am so lonely."
Posted by Warren Buffet knows the truth on November 6, 2009 at 5:40 PM

fixed.

Umm, probably 30% of these comments are why I dislike reading the things people decide to say on the internet.
I'm happy to see thought-provoking comments on the issue, and so irritated by people just being dildos.
I love reading your writing, Jake, as always. And I appreciate your use of profanity, as always!

From a SC resident:

No new news there. It was an FU to the union and we were the beneficiary. Problem is Seattle is missing the point. Boeing - the company with the work – isn’t interested in playing nice with the Union anymore because the union is a non-value add and they don’t HAVE TO – nice thing about the US. The fact that Airbus gets along with their Unions is a moot point, but out there they desperately want to be like Europe….give all of their $ to the Govt and hope to get some back.

"Jake got an article published in the stranger. I didn't. I am insecure, jealous and live on the internet. I don't know what ad hominem attacks are, so I will ironically continue to fabricate information about authors instead of making real points on my own. I will also deride the general journalistic practices of a publication whose website I am a member of, signifying in broad strokes just how much time I have on my hands."
Posted by Jimmy Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway makes me rich! on November 10, 2009 at 9:59 PM

fixed. all day, son.