Boeing job cuts to hit fabrication plants first

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Some of the first Boeing Co. commercial airplane workers to be laid off will be at fabrication plants in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, a company official said.

The first round of cuts will include as many as 1,900 fabrication workers by Dec. 31 in Auburn and Frederickson; Gresham, Ore.; Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Arnprior, Ontario, Boeing spokeswoman Cris McHugh told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Monday.

Boeing officials said previously the first 60-day layoff notices to U.S. workers would be issued Oct. 12 and take effect Dec. 14.

Boeing recently announced plans to cut as many as 30,000 jobs in commercial jet manufacturing and related operations by the end of 2002 because of reduced demand for planes since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Under the plan, with many details yet to be determined, 10 percent of the company’s commercial airplane workforce would be gone the end of the year, another 10 percent could be laid off by the end of June and a third 10 percent by the end of next year.

Last week, Boeing announced that 2,000 to 2,200 jobs would be eliminated in Wichita, Kan., by the end of the year, and another 3,000 workers there might lose their jobs next year.

"We are hoping with each passing day that business with the airlines is going to improve, but for now, these hard decisions, we have to stick with them," Boeing spokesman Tom Ryan said.

As in the past, the first layoff notices are being issued to workers at the start of the manufacturing process. Fabrication employees build parts used in the assembly of jetliners.

Boeing’s fabrication unit employs more than 10,000 people, including 6,500 in Auburn and Frederickson, 1,659 in Gresham and the rest in Canada.