With new, four-year contracts in place between Boeing and its Machinists, engineers and technical workers, along with a record backlog of airplane orders, all should be well with the region’s most important industry.
Shouldn’t it?
If only.
Speculation continues among industry observers that the latest round of difficult labor talks, especially the Machinists’ 57-day strike — the union’s second consecutive walkout and third longest in its history — will hasten the departure of Puget Sound’s largest private employer.
The thinking goes something like this: Plenty of Southern states covet Boeing, and have right-to-work laws that put a damper on union power. Combine that with lower business costs for things like unemployment insurance and workers compensation, along with potential freebies that Washington’s Constitution doesn’t allow, and Boeing may decide to open a new line for 787 production, or perhaps the next-generation 737, in South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama or some other new home. Future production lines would follow, gutting Washington’s aerospace sector.
That would inflict a major heart attack on the Puget Sound economy, one that would make 3,400 layoffs at Washington Mutual seem like a hiccup. Washington’s aerospace industry accounts for more than 209,000 direct and indirect jobs, and Boeing is the major reason why many support businesses are located here. When Lockheed Corp. moved more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs from Los Angeles to Georgia in 1990, it launched an exodus that resulted in the loss of more than 100,000 aerospace jobs in L.A. — nearly 70 percent of the total.
And take no solace from the notion that Southern states can’t compete with Washington’s trained workforce. A recent Puget Sound Business Journal article noted that the South has been building an extensive base of aerospace companies producing a variety of products and components, including rockets for Boeing. Washington has no laurels left to sit on.
It would behoove the Machinists’ and engineers’ union leaders to weigh their members’ future carefully and look for ways to build a significantly more constructive relationship with the company — now. Regular work stoppages make Boeing an unreliable supplier. The fact that the unions had some legitimate issues (Boeing did, too) doesn’t negate the fact that the company gets to decide where its planes will be built.
Elected leaders in Olympia should follow up on recent recommendations by the Governor’s Aerospace Council on ways to make Washington more competitive for aerospace jobs — including the ones we already have.
Boeing remains the cornerstone of the Puget Sound economy; a business well positioned to succeed even in a recession. We neglect it at our peril.
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