Boeing News
Boeing machinists reject contract; vote to strike
By Ken Leiser
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/14/2010
ST. CHARLES — Union machinists at Boeing's defense plants in Hazelwood and St. Charles voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject a company contract offer and to strike.
During a two-hour meeting at the St. Charles Family Arena, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 cheered after it was announced that the membership had rejected the contract 1,548-532. The strike vote passed 1,619-459. Union officials said June 23 is the earliest a strike would begin.
The votes followed an all-out campaign by Boeing to persuade workers to support the deal, including postcards to Machinists' homes and "all-hands" meetings, a union official said Sunday.
"They went above and beyond what they ever have in any other contract to try to get the membership to buy this contract," said Gordon King, the president and directing business representative for District 837. "The membership saw through that."
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Machinist call for strike leaves out vital demand
As Published in the St Louis Globe-Democrat
By Andy Heaslet
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Boeing’s St Louis Machinists have agreed to a strike if the company cannot meet their demands.
I truly admire the grit of these determined employees who are seeking to get their share of the company they literally helped to build. Too many companies have used the economic downturn as an excuse to force unfavorable conditions onto workers’ backs so that the company can line shareholder and executives’ pockets. When organized labor flexes its muscles, it creates upward pressure on wages and benefits for the entire working class. This announcement from IAM 837 is good news for the St Louis region.
While I support the machinists’ readiness to strike, I think there is a notable omission from their demands: long-term job security.
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TANKER STORY
by Brianna Jordan, PEP research intern
March 22, 2010
Almost fifty years ago President Eisenhower was one of the first to speak out about the military industrial complex in his farewell address warning “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Today the military industrial complex takes billions of much needed money and time away from other programs. In the midst of an economic recession this wastefulness is simply unforgivable. The most recent example of the destructive nature of the military industrial complex is the long, scandal-ridden story of KC-X Tanker.
The KC-X tanker is the United States Air Force’s next-generation aerial refueling tanker. These tankers will replace the 49-year-old Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers. With cancellation for commercial jets throughout the airline industry, the hefty $35 billion price tag will make the deal a huge win for the contractor. Until a few weeks ago, the competition was between Boeing and a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (aka EADS).
Boeing plans to build their tankers in Washington and Kansas. Their main backers are Rep. Norman d*** (D-Washington) and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R- Kansas), as well as a list of governers including MO Democract, Jay Nixon. Northrop Grumman/EADS had planned to build a plant in Alabama, as well as create jobs in Florida and West Virginia. Their main backer was Rep. Shelby (R-Alabama). This war of strongly worded letters and endless lobbying is one of old-fashioned geography – not the usual conservative versus liberal bickering.
Three weeks ago, the pentagon released their final request for proposals (or RFP) with 230 changes. According to Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, most of the changes were purely technical.
Boeing and Grumman/EADS were both upset with the lack of important changes. Grumman/EADS was disappointed that more changes were not made to change the fact that in their eyes the bid favors smaller, cheaper tankers like those Boeing offers. They argue that their Airbus model could be used for other things aside from being strictly a refueling tanker. In a move that many saw as a bluff, Airbus threatened to drop out of the competition for several months before the RFP’s release, and the new RFP did not make the changes that they said they needed in order to submit a bid. Some analysts had argued that Northrop was just trying to force the Air Force to change the request, and some argued that Northrop continued to threaten to drop out simply to lay the groundwork for an appeal if the contract goes to Boeing. But a few weeks ago they officially dropped out to the anger of Alabama, Florida, West Virginia and European residents. Dropping out created a single bid “competition” that’s just another embarrassing strike against the already scandalous history of the tanker deal.
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Tanker Deal Gives a Lift to Boeing
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
From the NY Times
Published: March 10, 2010
Northrop Grumman’s withdrawal this week from a $40 billion contest to build aerial refueling tankers provides Boeing with some welcome certainty about its future as a major builder of military aircraft.
In recent years, the company faced growing concerns about this core part of its business. After all, some of its most profitable planes, like the C-17 cargo jet, were nearing the end of production.
The company’s overall military business was hit harder than any major contractor by cuts in weapons programs last year, and its efforts to create new Army combat systems and defenses against missile systems have been scaled back.
The tanker contract also comes as Boeing’s newest commercial planes, the 787 Dreamliner and the 747-8 freighter, have finally shaken lengthy delays and entered flight testing, raising hopes for lucrative returns as the economy recovers.
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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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