Machinists challenge pink slips

  • Bryan Corliss / Herald Writer
  • Thursday, December 20, 2001 9:00pm
  • Business

By Bryan Corliss

Herald Writer

The union for Machinists at the Boeing Co. filed two grievances Thursday over layoffs at the company, even as Boeing prepared to cut another 1,287 jobs from its Puget Sound workforce.

The third round of 60-day layoff warnings will go out today to those workers, plus another 450 to Boeing people outside the Puget Sound region. The last day for the workers will be Feb. 22.

Boeing now has announced cuts of more than 16,000 of its employees since September. That total is far higher than it needed to be, the Machinists claimed Thursday, because the company has shipped off work to outside contractors that should be done in-house.

"If Boeing abided by the contract they signed with the Machinists union, hundreds, if not thousands, of these layoffs could be avoided," Machinists district president Mark Blondin said, announcing the grievance filings.

"Boeing seems to be more concerned with the viability of subcontractors than the livelihoods of Boeing workers," Blondin said. "This outright disdain for the very people who helped build Boeing into the most successful aerospace company in the world is unbelievable."

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group spokesman Chuck Cadena said Thursday that the company hadn’t had time to review the complaint, so he couldn’t comment. But, he added, "We believe we’re honoring our contract with the Machinists."

The Machinists disagree. The union is challenging the layoffs of almost 1,000 individuals whose last day at work was last Friday.

"The fact is, Boeing continues to subcontract work," Blondin said.

The union maintains that Boeing has violated contract language that clearly states no member will be laid off as a result of the company sending work to outside contractors.

If that work still was being done in-house, then Boeing wouldn’t be laying off so many people now, the union said. And in some cases, people with seniority were bumped into lower-level positions when the work they used to do was contracted out. Those people now face the threat of layoffs.

The union already had filed a general grievance on this issue with the company, which will lead to arbitration. Thursday’s filing was on behalf of the individuals who lost their jobs last week. "I’m sure we will find more subcontracting violations when the Jan. 25 layoffs occur, but we cannot include them in the grievance until the people are actually laid off," Blondin said.

On Thursday, the union also filed a grievance on behalf of facilities maintenance workers, saying Boeing violated a letter of understanding that subcontractors who do that kind of work will be released before union members.

The union for engineers and technicians also is investigating similar issues involving its members, said Bill Dugovich, spokesman for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.

"This off-loading is not good for anyone," he said.

Both unions had proposed that Boeing bring back in-house work which had been farmed out to contractors as a way to reduce layoffs. The company refused.

Last week, Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally said during a radio talk show that the company had done that during the last round of layoffs, and had seen many of its suppliers go out of business as a result. When business later rebounded, Boeing was unable to get its hands on enough of the components those contractors used to produce, and that caused serious production problems.

Today’s round of cuts is the smallest of the announcements made so far. Boeing announced the elimination of 12,000 jobs on Sept. 18 — 3,000 through retirement and attrition and 9,000 layoffs. Of the total, 7,000 were Puget Sound-area workers. They lost their jobs last week.

Boeing gave layoff warnings to 2,900 other workers in November. Their last day will be Jan. 25.

You can call Herald Writer Bryan Corliss at 425-339-3454

or send e-mail to corliss@heraldnet.com.

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