Boeing is offering permanent workers in South Carolina bonuses to meet production goals for the 787 Dreamliner following a spike in unfinished work since the company increased production to 10 a month this year, Warren Wise reported Friday in the Charleston Post and Courier.
The South Carolina facility assembles the plane’s aft- and mid-body sections and does final assembly, as well. Boeing wants the North Charleston, S.C., facility to be finishing three planes a month by mid-summer.
Most final assembly is done in Everett. Last year, the company expanded final assembly in Everett to make up for South Carolina’s slower rate.
In North Charleston, Boeing has offered factory floor workers a bonus worth 8 percent of base pay for the previous 12 months if they meet production goals by April 30, Wise reports. Other Boeing workers there would get a flat $2,500 bonus.
If the North Charleston plant doesn’t meet the first deadline but hits the production rate by June 30, workers get 60 percent of those bonuses.
That incentive pay would be in addition to annual bonuses worth 18 days of pay that South Carolina workers will get at the end of the month.
Boeing workers in Washington, meanwhile, are taking home slighlty smaller annual bonuses. Non-union employees and those represented by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) get awards worth between 16 and 17 days of extra pay, about 6.15 percent and 6.54 percent of their eligible 2013 earnings.
The awards for 2013 performance are among the highest ever for the Employee Incentive Plan and are based on the company’s 2013 financial performance, according to a Boeing spokesman.
Approximately 51,600 eligible current and former employees in Washington will receive the payout beginning Feb. 27.
Employees who belong to the Machinists union get bonuses through the Aerospace Machinists Performance Program, which this year will be at most 4 percent of their 2013 eligible earnings.
Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.
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