Boeing bonus incentives due

About 200,000 current and former Boeing Co. workers stand to get stock bonuses worth about $900 this week.

The payouts will come if Boeing’s stock price averages above $44 a share on Wednesday – which seemed altogether likely Monday, when Boeing stock closed at $50.21 a share.

The payments would come from Boeing’s ShareValue Trust program, an employee stock incentive that was established in 1996. The program promised shares of Boeing stock to employees if stock prices hit pre-set targets on specific dates.

This is the first payout for the program. On three previous dates, the stock prices were too low to meet the target.

Based on Friday’s closing stock price – $50.88 – the company estimates the average worker who was with Boeing for all of the past four years will get bonuses of about $900, before taxes, said Boeing spokeswoman Anne Eisele in Chicago.

Workers in the United States will get their bonuses in shares of Boeing stock – 18 shares, on average.

“They can sell them, they can trade them in,” Eisele said. “They own them and can do whatever they want.”

Those who work overseas will get checks.

The bonuses will go to people who worked at Boeing between July 2000 and June 2004. That includes those who’ve been laid off. Their payments will be proportional to the amount of time they were on the payroll

The payments will go to all nonunion employees, and to members of many unions at Boeing, including Machinists and members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace bargaining units in Puget Sound, Eisele said.

The shares should be distributed by mid-August, she said.

Separately, Boeing’s board of directors declared a 20-cent-a-share quarterly stock dividend.

The payment will be made Sept. 3 to shareholders of record as of Aug. 13, the company said.

Boeing increased its quarterly dividend to 20 cents from 17 cents after the first quarter.

Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.