Boeing News
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Pork!
From BusinessWeek.com
IN DEPTH October 29, 2009
Boeing's C-17 cargo aircraft cost $250 million apiece. The Pentagon says it has plenty. But it's nearly impossible for Obama to kill a project that provides jobs in 43 states
By Ben Elgin and Keith Epstein
President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates want to leave the Cold War in the past—finally—and reshape the U.S. military into more of a counterinsurgency force. They have made reforming weapons acquisition a major priority, saying that some hardware designed for battling Soviet armies or other massive foes in vast open-field clashes ought to be replaced by lighter, less expensive gear. The Administration has pared billions from the budget for the Lockheed Martin (LMT) F-22 fighter, a super-sophisticated plane conceived in the 1980s for dogfights against Moscow's best. The Pentagon has also reined in a sprawling high-tech infantry project called Future Combat Systems that Boeing (BA) oversees. All told, a half-dozen major weapons systems have been eliminated for an estimated savings of more than $100 billion over coming decades.
But it's not like military spending is actually going down. At a projected $107 billion for 2010 alone—a 5% rise over this year—the Pentagon's base budget for planes, ships, missiles, and guns has grown more than 50% since 2000. Reforming and redirecting military procurement always riles members of Congress trying to protect jobs in their home districts. Lawmakers are teaming up with Lockheed, Boeing, and other defense contractors to push back fiercely on certain targeted programs, even when the Pentagon says it doesn't need the weaponry in question. In some areas, organized labor has joined the fight.
The C-17 Globemaster offers one illustration of successful opposition to the Obama-Gates push for control of weapons spending.
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Boeing Blew Opportunity for Labor Peace, Union Says
From Bllomberg.com
By Susanna Ray
Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. “blew a wonderful opportunity” for a no-strike guarantee of more than 10 years when it chose South Carolina over its Washington manufacturing hub for a new Dreamliner assembly line, the lead negotiator for the machinists union said.
The union was willing to extend its current four-year contract by another eight years, ensuring no strikes through at least 2020, to secure the 787 work, Rich Michalski said. Instead, Boeing shut down talks two days before its Oct. 26 board meeting and announced Oct. 28 that it would open a plant in the southeastern U.S. state, the first time it has built a commercial-aircraft assembly line outside the Seattle area.
“They won’t ever get us to commit like that again,” Michalski said in an interview last night. “That’s over.”
Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers sent contradictory e-mails to employees yesterday, and interviews with negotiators for the two yielded conflicting accounts about the talks.
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Boeing Pursues PEP suggestions!
Almost a year to the day after PEP Coordinator, Andy Heaslet, and GreenCorps organizer, Sonya Carlson noted "[Boeing's] unprecedented expertise in networking operations could prove invaluable to connecting new power sources to electric grids" in an Op-Ed to the St Louis Post Dispatch, Boeing does, indeed, consider getting into the energy efficiency market! Now to see if any of that work finds its way to Missouri!
STLtoday.com
10.13.2009
Boeing expanding to power-grid market?
By: Frank Reust
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Bloomberg News is reporting this morning that Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg is looking to enter the U.S. power-grid market because the company’s key defense programs are being canceled or facing budget cuts.
After a month in the job, Muilenburg, 45, said he’s accelerating plans to expand beyond aerospace and defense that were started by his predecessor, Jim Albaugh, who was named head of the commercial-jet division on Aug. 31.
“We know that we have to reposition our business, and that repositioning is something we are very aggressively doing,” Muilenburg said in an interview in his office overlooking the Pentagon. “One idea is to take some of our defense technology and use it to help solve problems in the energy sector.”
Bloomberg reports that energy projects would put Boeing in competition with General Electric, International Business Machines and Cisco Systems for $4.5 billion of U.S. stimulus spending aimed at improving the grid. The market for the grid’s communications segment may be worth $20 billion in the next few years, Boeing spokesman Chris Haddox said.
The extra business would be a boost to Chicago-based Boeing, which has faced losses in the Pentagon’s new spending plans. The company’s Future Combat Systems and Airborne Laser programs were canceled, as was a ground-based missile-defense site in Europe it would have built.
Meanwhile, Reuters in reporting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hope for Boeing to win a contract in Russia to supply planes for the state-run airlines.
Flying Into Headwinds
And Why Boeing remains optimistic despite changing business climate
The New York Times
October 9, 2009
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
WASHINGTON — As Senator John McCain argued recently in a floor debate to strip $2.5 billion worth of cargo planes from a military spending bill, he complained that members of Congress could not “walk through these hallways without bumping into a lobbyist from Boeing.”
Mr. McCain had President Obama on his side in calling for a halt in production of the cargo plane, the C-17, to save money for other military priorities. But thousands of jobs were also at stake. The giant aerospace company’s efforts — it has 23 lobbyists — paid off. This week, the Senate voted to keep the program alive, and a House-Senate conference will make the final call soon on how many more of the planes to buy.
Boeing needs any victory it can get these days. Its biggest potential moneymaker, the Dreamliner commercial jet, is two years late and costing billions of dollars more than expected. Boeing also said this week it would take a $1 billion charge on a commercial freight plane.
And while the company had sharply expanded its defense business in recent years, it was clear that the flush times in military spending were coming to an end, and Boeing could be the biggest loser.
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Boeing to cut 10,000 jobs in ’09
It is infuriating that the Boeing Corporation and the business journal continually blame 4th quarter losses on the machinist strike in Washington state. It takes two to tango, here. It's simply not fair to place the entire blame on the union.
Look for savvy politicians to use this notice as an excuse to call for more military spending. I'd prefer to see more "spill over" technologies being developed by Boeing, though.
January 28, 2009
St. Louis Business Journal
Boeing Co. said Wednesday it plans to cut 10,000 jobs, or about 6 percent of its work force, this year, but the impact on St. Louis is not yet known.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the job cuts would impact Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems unit, which is based in St. Louis, but the number of local lay-offs will be "minimal," said Derrell Carter, a Boeing spokesman.
The job reductions include 4,500 that were previously announced at the Seattle-based commercial-plane division.
Boeing's IDS unit, one of the world’s largest space and defense businesses, is led by President and CEO Jim Albaugh. IDS is the second-largest employer in St. Louis with 16,000 workers.
Boeing swung to a loss in the fourth quarter due to a 58-day machinists’ strike.
The Chicago-based aircraft giant (NYSE: BA) said it lost $56 million, or 8 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $1.03 billion, or $1.36, for the same quarter a year earlier. It blamed a now-settled strike by machinists that straddled the third and fourth quarters and reduced revenue by $4.3 billion and commercial airplane deliveries by 70 aircraft.
Boeing to lay off 4,500 in Seattle
1/9/09
St. Louis Business Journal
Boeing Co. said Friday that it will lay off 4,500 workers at its Seattle-based Commercial Airplanes unit.
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Boeing Gets Green. Can still do more.
To be fair, Boeing does occasionally do some good things for the earth, community, and the environment. We only wish they would focus more energy on greening and truly supporting their communities than on strengthening the power of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. Look for Boeing’s roll in the Obama admistration with the appointment of Gen. James Jones, a former Boeing board member, as Obama’s NSA advisor.
This article shows a glimpse into the potential for Boeing to do some good. Let’s give them a thumbs up – and ask for more. A lot more.
Boeing St. Louis Site Earns Environmental Certification
Boeing.com
12/4/2008
Boeing announced that its St. Louis site has earned International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 certification, a global benchmark of an organization's commitment to understand and continuously improve its environmental performance.
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Boeing Mismanagement Causes 25% Workforce Reduction in Wichita
This is infuriating and one of many reasons why the Peace Economy Project continually calls for the diversification of Boeing facilities.
There are many guilty parties in the debacle that has been the procurement process for the refueling tanker bid and Boeing’s management was at the vanguard of these missteps. To force 800 medium-level employees, more than 25% of the Wichita staff, to pay for the errors, mismanagement, and corruption coming from senior Boeing management is simply unjust.
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Machinists ratify Boeing pact, set to resume work
By RORY MARSHALL
BusinessWeek.com
SEATTLE
11/2/08
Machinists union members have ratified a new contract with Boeing Co., ending an eight-week strike that cut the airplane maker's profits and stalled jetliner deliveries even as world demand was surging.
Workers are expected to return to Boeing's commercial airplane factories, which have been closed since the Sept. 6 walkout, starting Sunday night.
The vote Saturday by members of the union, which represents about 27,000 workers at plants in Washington state, Oregon and Kansas, was about 74 percent in favor of the proposal five days after the two sides tentatively agreed to the deal and union leaders recommended its approval.
"This contract gives the workers at Boeing an opportunity to share in the extraordinary success this company has achieved over the past several years," Mark Blondin, the union's aerospace coordinator and chief negotiator, said in a union news release.
"It also recognizes the need to act with foresight to protect the next generation of aerospace jobs. These members helped make Boeing the company it is today, and they have every right to be a part of its future," he said.
The union has said the contract protects more than 5,000 factory jobs, prevents the outsourcing of certain positions and preserves health care benefits. It also promises pay increases over four years rather than three, as outlined in earlier offers.
The union members, including electricians, painters, mechanics and other production workers, have lost an average of about $7,000 in base pay since the strike began. They had rejected earlier proposals by the company, headquartered in Chicago.
It was the union's fourth strike against Boeing in two decades and its longest since 1995. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers staged strikes against Boeing for 24 days in 2005, 69 days in 1995 and 48 days in 1989.
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Boeing, Machinists reach tentative deal
Union urges striking workers to vote yes Thursday
Monday, September 26, 2005
By JAMES WALLACE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER AEROSPACE REPORTER
After secret negotiations in Washington, D.C., that included commercial boss Alan Mulally, The Boeing Co. has reached a tentative agreement with its striking Machinists union.
The company gave in to union demands on issues that had triggered the strike more than three weeks ago and which had shut down Boeing's jetliner production in the Puget Sound area at a critical time, just as Boeing was cranking up to meet growing demand by customers for new jets.
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