Lay off strikers, hire contractors

I recently heard about the expected 4,500 layoffs at Boeing in the near future and that the cuts would come from the contractor force first. This is a load of crap.

The people directly responsible for the company losing business are the ones who should be laid off. Namely, the factory workers who voted for the strike — managers know who they are — should be the first to go. Next to go should be the folks who are the troublemakers and lazy workers and also those with less than a stellar attendance record. Also, as part of that group, those engineers who were planning to vote for a strike on the SPEEA contracts — managers know who most of these folks are, too. They are in a classification no better than the factory workers, in my opinion, anyway.

Let the contractors stay and get rid of the regular employees listed above. The contractors should then be converted to Boeing employees. The contractors did not support the strike and should be rewarded rather than punished by layoffs.

Of course, in its infinite wisdom, the corporation will probably reward those who caused the company the greatest harm by letting them keep their jobs and get rid of those who are the proudest to work for Boeing, the contractors. Note: I would be proud to work for Boeing and would do an outstanding job every single day if given the opportunity.

Rick Palmer