http://labornotes.org/sites/default/files/styles/blog_thumb/public/main/articles/Boeing%202008%20Jim%20Levitt.jpg?itok=HO34-oh4


Boeing Blackmails Washington Workforce on 777X Production (http://www.thebellforum.com/2013/11/boeing-blackmails-washington-workforce-777x-production)


November 11, 2013 / Jenny Brown (http://www.thebellforum.com/author/4084/content)


Thirty-one thousand Machinists in Washington state were stunned to learn last week that their union is pushing mid-contract concessions under threat from Boeing to move work out of state.





More... (http://labornotes.org/2013/11/boeing-blackmails-washington-workforce-777x-production)

As the late, great Johnny Unitas said, "The best defense is a good offense." Re-organizing the Charlston plant would remove that bolt from Boeing's quiver and serve notice that the same could happen elsewhere. It's a very tough nut but would be a very big win.


A union representing machinists and aerospace workers took a step closer to organizing Boeing Co.'s South Carolina plant this week, holding informational meetings with workers at a hotel near the 787 jet factory in this strongly anti-union state.

Representatives of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) met Boeing employees Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday, handing out information and answering questions about union rights in a "right-to-work" state, one of 23 that prohibit making union membership a requirement of employment.

"We're a lot closer (to union formation) than folks think we are," said Tommy Mayfield, a southern territory organizer for the IAM. "There's an awful lot of support. They're not ready to take a vote yet, but we're glad the process is out in the open."

Boeing said its workers do not need a union.

"We're continuously working on making Boeing South Carolina a place where teammates have a voice and can speak for themselves without having to rely on a third party," Boeing spokeswoman Candy Eslinger said in a statement.

The organizing drive was long viewed as an obvious move by the union after workers voted to oust the IAM in 2009 at what was then a plant supplying fuselages to Boeing, helping the plant win the second 787 assembly line.

"It was just a matter of time," said Scott Hamilton, an industry analyst in Seattle.

If the union drive succeeds, it could affect Boeing's ability to move production to non-union workers.

For the union, the drive is a test of its ability to hang on to workers.

IAM "can't afford not to have a campaign," said Gary Chaison, professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "They want to discourage Boeing from locating in non-union areas."

The IAM effort has been in the works for two years, Mayfield said. The effort appears to be heating up as the factory begins rolling out finished jets.

Mayfield said more than 50 workers had indicated they would support a union but did not say how many the IAM wanted before it would hold a vote to certify the union.

Boeing South Carolina has about 2,000 potential IAM members, Mayfield said. The meeting this week came after the union sent its first mass mailing to workers.

Boeing delivered its first South Carolina-made 787 this month, to Air India Ltd. Boeing wants combined production of 787s from both factories to reach 10 a month by the end of next year, up from a target of 5 per month by the end of 2012.

The union represents 45,000 current and former Boeing workers in Seattle and the surrounding Puget Sound region. It also represents 75 to 100 aerospace workers associated with the Boeing C17-Globemaster military transport aircraft at Joint Base Charleston, in South Carolina, and about 700 workers at the Cherry Point Naval Air Depot in North Carolina, Mayfield said.

Workers at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. in Kinston, N.C., are scheduled to vote soon on whether to form a union chapter, he said.

But the union faces an uphill battle at the Boeing plant in North Charleston. Workers might fear losing their jobs for supporting the drive and the union will not want to risk losing a vote.

"Workers don't want to take chances, especially with the economy and the lack of good industrial jobs in South Carolina," Chaison said.

If the workers vote down the union, he added, "it would be tremendously embarrassing for the union."

IAM has been the most vocal of Boeing's unions in opposing the Chicago-based company's move toward non-union labor. The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees unions, charged in April 2011 that Boeing built its second 787 final assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, as retaliation against union workers who struck in Washington state in 2008. The NLRB complaint came after the IAM filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Boeing in March 2010.

The NLRB dismissed its complaint in December after Boeing machinists ratified a new four-year contract, which included an deal to assemble the new 737 MAX jet in Washington state.

The union also has taken on South Carolina. In January 2011, the IAM sued Governor Nikki Haley over anti-union remarks it said showed a state policy hostile to workers' rights.

Haley said South Carolina was and always would be pro-business. She later described her remarks as "talking smack about the unions." The case was dismissed in August 2011.

Mayfield, who is based near Mobile, Alabama, and was in South Carolina for two weeks of organizing activities, said he had never seen hotter anti-union political rhetoric than in South Carolina.

IAM has chapters in 14 southern states and all but Kentucky are right-to-work states, Mayfield said.

"We're here to answer questions," he said. Workers want to know what a union is and how union contracts work.

Many fear the union "will walk in here and say 'We're taking you out on strike,' " he said. "Under our constitution it takes 66 percent of the members (to call for) a formal strike. You can't get three people out of five to agree on what they want to eat for dinner sometimes."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-17/business/chi-machinist-begin-organizing-effort-at-boeing-in-sc-20121017_1_jet-factory-union-membership-union-chapter

Here, a view from the ground:


Will Boeing South Carolina ever become a union shop? Time and working conditions will tell

They trickled in and out of the North Charleston hotel meeting room, men in Boeing polo shirts meeting with a pair in red International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers polos.

The workers had come to learn more about organizing their plane-making plant, and the union representatives were there to field their questions and concerns.

.During a lull in the intermittent meetings, Tommy Mayfield, the IAM Grand Lodge representative for the Southern territory, walked over in a pair of well-worn cowboy boots to explain what has been happening largely out of the public eye.

“I've been meeting with these folks for a while,” said Mayfield, a gruff-talking but friendly Alabama native. “Support is very strong.”

That's right, Boeing's biggest union is back in the Lowcountry, and despite the recent history and South Carolina's right-to-work laws, it's making inroads. Mayfield said there could be a vote administered by the National Labor Relations Board “within a year.”

While only about 10 employees passed through over the course of an hour Tuesday afternoon, Mayfield said there were more earlier in the day and that “close to two dozen people” met with him after the second shift let out around midnight.

He said there are “greater than 50 people” signed up and likely more sympathetic or at least curious Boeing South Carolina employees. But the anti-union sentiment in the state makes the organizing process very sensitive.

“The biggest thing is the fear factor,” he said.

There has been a regular Machinist presence in and around what is now the Boeing South Carolina complex for years, but last week's meeting came into public view after recent news reports.

Asked about the organizing effort, Boeing released a statement: “We're continuously working on making Boeing South Carolina a place where teammates have a voice and can speak for themselves without having to rely on a third party to speak for them.”

Poking around
Dennis Murray, a manufacturing engineer in the aft-body factory, knows the whole history firsthand. Murray was working at Vought Aircraft Industries when the Machinists narrowly won representation rights at the North Charleston aft-body factory in November 2007. After a fraught couple of years and Boeing's purchase of that facility, Murray was behind the drive to vote out the IAM in September 2009.

Then the Machinists claimed Boeing built the North Charleston final assembly line in retaliation for past strikes in the Puget Sound, and the resulting National Labor Relations Board complaint threatened the new South Carolina facility.

When the NLRB filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Boeing, Murray was one of three local workers who sought to intervene in the case. And almost a year after that case settled, as part of a grand bargain involving a new contract for the IAM in the Puget Sound, Murray is now party to another NLRB complaint, this time charging the IAM with retaliation against him and his local coworkers.

Murray said the Machinists have been “poking around literally ever since they got booted out.”

“Both before and after the elections and throughout the construction and as well as the NLRB case, the IAM has maintained contact with supporters inside the facility just as they have maintained contact with us,” IAM spokesman Frank Larkin said.

Scott Hamilton, a longtime Boeing observer near Seattle, has long predicted the union would be back.

“I look at it as the day (the IAM) was decertified down there, it was only a matter of time before the Machinists, or some other union ... came in there to organize the touch labor,” Hamilton said last week. He added “it's only a matter of time” before the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace “tries to organize the engineers down there.”

So far, it's mainly been the Machinists, and that means Mayfield, though this week he was joined by an IAM representative from Seattle.

Meet and greet
Mayfield has been inviting “Brothers and Sisters,” potentially interested members of “the Bargaining Unit,” to afternoon drop-in “informational” or “organizing” sessions at area hotels since at least the spring, including two meetings last month, according to emails obtained by The Post and Courier. This month, the solicitation went out by mail, an apparent escalation of the organizing effort.

Mayfield said he got addresses from people at the plant and from publicly available sources such as the phone book.

Aside from the meetings, the union also filed an unfair labor practice charge against Boeing this spring, alleging two occasions in March and April when a Boeing supervisor or manager discouraged unionization. The NLRB accepted the charge and argued the complaint before an administrative law judge in North Charleston last month, but there has been no decision yet.

Murray said the people at the plant who are interested now in organizing are generally new to Boeing and weren't around when the union was voted in, then out, when Vought owned the aft-body plant.

“To me, I just kind of find it rather interesting that here's the union that we had represent us supposedly, and they (mistreated workers) royally,” Murray said. “So we got rid of them and then they tried to use the NLRB to shut (us) down. But yet they're still trying to get in. Bottom line, it's all about control. The union does not like the fact that Boeing has a nonunion facility that makes airplanes because now they can't shut down the whole line.”

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint was also incredulous this week when told Boeing South Carolina workers were in the process of organizing.

“It would blow me away if the employees of Boeing here were so foolish as to unionize when that was one of the key reasons that this plant was built,” he said during a trip to Charleston. “I'm surprised there's even one employee there is willing to sit down and talk.”

“Boeing will keep shifting business here as long as we're a business-friendly environment,” DeMint continued. “To mess that up does not make any sense.”

Making planes
Mayfield said the union has no such goal. The Machinists want Boeing to prosper, he said.

“Never and forever would the Machinists union ... want to come in here and negotiate Boeing out of Charleston,” he said. “That's cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

Aside from concerns about overtime that several workers have raised, Mayfield said employees also are concerned about other conditions of work, such as how shifts are assigned and fair opportunities for promotion.

“And at the bottom of the list, believe it or not, is wages,” he said.

Mayfield was careful to add that Boeing South Carolina workers are aware that their counterparts in the Puget Sound are paid more.

Dennis Nolan, who has taught labor law for 34 years, said the Machinists have been positioning itself just in case the organizing stars align.

“What the union wants to do is maintain a presence and develop contacts and a few potential leaders and then if something happens ... and there's a lot of dissatisfaction, the union could be there to capitalize on it,” said Nolan, who is a mediator and the Webster Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Labor Law at the University of South Carolina.

Hamilton, the Boeing observer, said the airframer is “obviously motivated to keep the union out.”

“But Boeing also has a history of misjudging what the mood of the employees is,” he said, citing as one example the 2008 Machinists vote that triggered a damaging strike four years ago.

He believes the only way the local workforce unionizes is if the company gives it reason to.

“It will take Boeing management mistreating the workers in some fashion,” he said.

The other union that represents a large number of Boeing workers in the Puget Sound, Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, has not been as active as the Machinists in North Charleston, said spokesman Bill Dugovich.

“We'd certainly be receptive to employees if they asked for that, but at this point, we've responded to inquiries by individuals and provided them information, but it hasn't risen above that level yet,” Dugovich said.

Looking ahead
Nolan, the USC labor law professor, said it's still too early to say whether Boeing South Carolina will eventually become unionized.

The only way it could happen, “assuming that Boeing resists,” would be through an NLRB election, Nolan said.

To stage an election, the Machinists would have to obtain signatures of at least 30 percent of the proposed bargaining unit. There are some 6,100 who work at Boeing South Carolina, but the bargaining unit would be a considerably smaller subset of that, including blue-collar mechanics and assemblers, but excluding any contractors, managers and white-collar workers.

Mayfield suggested the eventual bargaining unit could eventually include as many as 2,000 Boeing employees.

Murray emphasized that he speaks only for himself and not for Boeing. He said he prefers to deal with company management directly and not pay union dues. But there are people at Boeing South Carolina who feel differently, he said, and whether his coworkers unionize is ultimately in Boeing's hands.

“It gets to the point where it's purely up to the company,” Murray said. “If they decide they want to have us remain union-free, all they've got to do is keep people satisfied, have them feel like they're being appreciated and that they can't possibly get a deal through the union. Then, the union won't have a chance to get in.”

But if his workers feel like they're “not getting their fair share or being worked like dogs, then they're going to turn to ... an outside source to help mediate,” he added.

Reach Brendan Kearney at 937-5906 and follow him on Twitter at @kearney_brendan.

Editor's note: Earlier versions of this story need correcting. Dennis Murray was misidentified in earlier versions of this story, and a quote from him needed clarification. Also, Dennis Nolan's career information was incorrect. The Post and Courier regrets the errors.

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20121021/PC05/121029901/1165/will-boeing-south-carolina-ever-become-a-union-shop-time-and-working-conditions-will-tell

Well, it is the better of the Charlston papers. One thing for sure, this Murray fellow needs some education, perhaps some personal tutoring.

But not to worry, the Trotskyites got it all figured out....


Boeing workers should reject the sellout agreement in Wednesday’s vote. But this is only the beginning. The task confronting Boeing workers—and all workers—is breaking free of the pro-capitalist trade unions and the big business political parties and initiating an independent industrial and political struggle by the whole working class.

http://www.thebellforum.com/showthread.php?t=106326

No need for on-the-ground organization, just wish upon a star.

But not to worry, the Trotskyites got it all figured out....



No need for on-the-ground organization, just wish upon a star.

It's that "socialist fairy-dust", works every time! Except that it never has...

Boeing machinists soundly reject labor deal

Boeing machinists soundly rejected an eight-year labor contract extension on Wednesday that would have let them build the company's newest jetliner in Washington, a historic decision that could forever alter the course of Boeing's 97-year presence in the state.

International Association of Machinists members voted 67 percent against a deal that would secure an estimated 20 years of work building Boeing's 777X jet, but a deal that would have terminated their pension plan and raised their healthcare costs.

The decision means Boeing will consider building key parts of the 777X, including the wings, in non-union U.S. states or in Japan, where it has already received an offer.

A crowd of more than 100 people erupted in cheers when the vote was announced amid a charged atmosphere at the union's main hall in Seattle.

The vote means Boeing will look for other locations to build the 777X, the only jet it is likely to develop in the next 15 years. Even though the union's 31,000 workers gave up their chance for those jobs, they considered the giveaways in the contract too grave to accept.

Boeing "overreached," said Kathy Cummings, a Washington State Labor Council official.

Boeing swiftly issued a statement saying it had sought to strike a balance between its desire to build the jet in the state and to get what it termed a competitive cost structure.

"We are very disappointed in the outcome of the union vote," Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Ray Conner said in the statement.

"Without the terms of this contract extension, we're left with no choice but to open the process competitively and pursue all options for the 777X."

Tom Wroblewski, president of International Association of Machinists District 751, the local union, said in a statement that members "preserved something sacred by rejecting the Boeing proposal. We've held on to our pensions and that's big. At a time when financial planners are talking about a ‘retirement crisis' in America, we have preserved a tool that will help our members retire with more comfort and dignity."

He said he hoped Boeing would "not discard our skills when looking to place the 777X."

Wroblewski came under fire for standing with Boeing and Gov. Jay Inslee in announcing the labor proposal last week, then two days later at a raucous meeting with members, he tore up the agreement and disparaged it.

Wilson Ferguson, vice president of District 751, said Boeing's attempt to put the "future of the job market of the Puget Sound for the next 30 years on us is ridiculous."

"If they're going to make those business decisions and take the company down the road to corporate suicide, that's entirely their business," he said.

Washington state Gov. Inslee, who won approval of an $8.7 billion tax package for Boeing and the aerospace industry in less than a week, said the state still has much to offer Boeing.

"This does not diminish the strengths we do bring to the table," he said. "Tremendous workforce, tremendous incentive package, good permitting, a way to move forward on transportation. We bring those strengths to the table and we've got to continue to maximize those."

STRONG VIEWS

Voter turnout was high. Workers began lining up in predawn darkness on Wednesday outside the union hall in Everett, Washington and elsewhere in the Seattle area and in Oregon. Boeing builds the current 777 model in Everett.

"It goes against everything that we've fought for over the years," said John Orcutt, 42, a 17-year union member and hydraulic tube bender in Auburn, Washington.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-boeing-machinists-labor-vote-20131113,0,19564.story

Hope those organizers in Charlston been eating their Wheaties, their effort could be decisive.

Nikki Haley makes her move:



CHARLESTON, S.C. Dec 13 (Reuters) - Boeing Co has obtained a $1-a-year lease for 468 acres (189 hectares) of state land near its factory in South Carolina, nearly double the amount expected for a planned expansion, a spokeswoman for the planemaker said on Friday.

Besides 267 acres (108 hectares) it had planned to lease from the Charleston County Aviation Authority, Boeing added another 201 acres (81 hectares) of North Charleston land that had been privately owned to the deal, spokeswoman Candy Eslinger said.

Boeing did not say what it plans to build on the land.

Palmetto Railways - a division of the South Carolina Department of Commerce - paid $49 million for the land, a department spokeswoman said. It will lease the property to Boeing for $1 a year until 2027, when the company can opt to buy the land.

All 468 acres were bought with state bond funds allocated to Boeing, Eslinger said.

Boeing also announced on Friday that it would begin construction next year on a new 230,000-square-foot paint facility on its main campus in North Charleston.

The company said it expected to begin painting fully assembled 787 Dreamliners in South Carolina in mid-2016.

Boeing leases the 264 acres that its 787 final assembly plant sits on for $1 a year from the Charleston County Aviation Authority. The lease term on that land is up in 2025, when Boeing has the option to purchase it.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/12/13/boeing-southcarolina-land-idINL2N0JS0KZ20131213

Yet another act of taxpayer subsidized union busting. One can only hope that the ongoing effort to unionize the Charleston plant is eventually successful. The real plum would be the BMW plant near me, a very tough nut. Even if worker resistance and fear can be overcome the state is fanaticly anti-worker and will resort to 'any means necessary' to prevent such a precedent.

Where have you gone, William Foster, our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you. Wo wo wo.

Will Boeing Workers Nix Givebacks in Forced Re-vote?

In November 31,000 Machinists at Boeing rejected an 11-year contract extension packed with big concessions, in a 2-1 vote. Highly profitable Boeing wanted to eliminate pensions, under the threat of moving work on its forthcoming 777X plane out of Washington state.

Unhappy that members rejected the concessions it had negotiated, the IAM International has now scheduled a second vote for January 3. This time around, local union leaders in District Lodge 751 are 100 percent opposed and are doing their utmost to ensure a second rejection.

The vote by this large industrial workforce could be a last stand for private-sector pensions for new hires.

Here 35-year Machinist Jim Levitt gives a shop-floor view of the dispute, with Boeing and IAM International leaders on one side and local officers and members on the other.–Editors

Immediately following the November 13 rejection, Boeing began soliciting “bids” from other states and localities for the 777X work. A couple of newspapers got to see what Boeing was demanding in its request for proposals. Pretty outrageous: free land, a building for free or low cost, worker training, lowered taxes… the list went on.

Newspaper columnists at some of the sites made sport of the audacity of it all. First-born sons, anyone?

Meanwhile, back here in the Puget Sound, the media heaped all sorts of blame on us stupid Machinists for throwing away jobs. There was a lot of anger from union members toward the elected leaders of District 751 for not having opposed the contract offer, and even more toward the International for having “led” the process.

International President Thomas Buffenbarger sent us all a letter “explaining” what had happened in the November fiasco. At no point did he take any responsibility, or state forthrightly what his recommendation would have been. But his summary of the Boeing proposal read like it came from the company, and was totally misleading. A chart entitled “average wage rates” showed instead the maximum rate in each labor grade, the rate that wouldn’t be reached for over 20 years.

Because there had been no contact with Boeing since the vote to reject, Buffenbarger said, he had to assume “the matter was closed.” We received that letter just a couple of days before the matter proved to be anything but closed.

My own guess, after the November vote, was that nothing would happen until about the second week of December, giving Boeing the face-saving “out” of having solicited bids from other states, and the International the “out” of coming back with something better than the first scandalous offer. Then they could dangle a big ratification bonus in front of us right before Christmas.

Get Them on Board

Sure enough, word leaked out on Tuesday, December 10, that the union and the company were meeting. That meeting included not just the International’s “consultant” and the District Lodge 751 president, who’d been in on the earlier talks, but all the business reps from District 751. That indicated that Boeing had figured out that if it wanted a contract, it had better talk with the business reps who’d helped ensure the November offer went down in flames.

At this meeting, the business reps and District Lodge President Tom Wroblewski told Boeing the pension was non-negotiable, and that there was no point to further meetings if the company insisted on freezing it.

The next day, the union presented a proposal. From what I heard it essentially extended our existing contract, which doesn’t expire till 2016. The defined-benefit pension would remain in place, the progression step system would remain as it is now (six years of progression for new hires, then a “zoom” to full rate), general wage increases would be in the range we’ve been receiving (2 percent annually). A formula would be developed to figure out medical costs, rather than us just taking self-insured Boeing’s word for it.

Thursday, December 12, everything went to hell. Boeing’s bargainers came back with essentially the same offer we’d rejected 2-1, with one change of note: they eliminated the takeaway on the wage progression. No more demand that it take 22 years or more for someone to go from hire-in to maximum rate.

Otherwise, there was to be another $5,000 bonus (in 2020!) and a couple of boosts to dental coverage (in 2020 and 2024). Same freezing of the defined-benefit pension plan in 2016 for everyone, with new hires starting with a 401(k) effective immediately. (Boeing would put in 4 percent of one’s annual wage, which would result in retirement benefits at least 40 percent lower than what the defined-benefit plan generates.)

Here’s the kicker: Boeing made the offer conditional on the union leadership recommending acceptance and going out to sell it to the members.

The District 751 leadership, in the person of Wroblewski (who’d caught so much heat from the members in November for not taking a stand), told Boeing that the union could not do that. Boeing picked up the offer sheets and left.

Now for the really crappy part: Rich Michalski, the retired former International vice president, now a “consultant” hired by Buffenbarger to “lead” the talks, told the Seattle Times , just minutes after the talks broke down, that the members would vote on Boeing’s offer! He spun the offer as “extraordinary.”

Try not to gag when you read Michalski’s comments.

In response, the 751 leadership published an analysis of the Boeing offer on Friday, December 13. It was exactly the sort of thing that it should have put out before the vote in November, but was prevented by the International.

Boeing Flush with Cash

Boeing had a board meeting scheduled in Chicago on December 15. At that meeting it announced a $10 billion stock buyback, plus a 50 percent increase in the dividend. The stock is up 80 percent for the year. [A company buys back its own stock in order to make shares scarcer and thus increase their price. It is a frequent practice when a company has extra cash sitting around and doesn't want to use it to build new factories or employ people.]

It seemed as if the Boeing board was deliberately out to enrage the IAM membership.

The “yes” voices held a rally that drew about three dozen people.

And then came the real stink-bomb: December 21, Michalski announced we would vote on January 3. District 751 leadership immediately announced it was not in favor of this vote, and recommended that we reject again.

The International said it was sending us details of the proposal, as if we were somehow not properly informed the last time!

Voter Suppression

The January 3 voting date gives the whole game away: this deal is being rammed down our throats with a calculated voter suppression effort. The International scheduled the vote on a day when many, possibly thousands, of our members will not be present.

Decades back, the union and company negotiated a long break over the holidays, from the day before Christmas until the day after New Year’s. Many, many workers throw in a couple of days of vacation to stretch the break to a full two weeks. There’ll be a lot of missing faces on January 2 and January 3. Many will be more veteran workers, with vacation time to spare—the same workers most likely to oppose this offer.

This is the one time of year when our membership is completely atomized. Not only are there no union meetings, but we won’t even be able to talk to each other at work! The whole thing stinks.

A complicated absentee ballot process was worked up.

On December 23 District 751 emailed its rejection recommendation to the membership. It pointed out that “the International is forcing a vote” and laid out “the facts of the economic destruction you would have to live under for the next 11 years,” while Boeing is “experiencing record profits and backlogs.”

Notably, although the proposed concessions were ostensibly to save jobs, the 751 leaders pointed out that the contract contains no clear promise of work to be done at the site and reserves the right to subcontract or outsource “certain 777X work packages in whole or part.”

(For details on the take-aways, such as lowering future health care benefits without negotiations, read here. Particularly noteworthy are the hire-in rates. This contract would lock them in place until 2024. They’ve changed only once since 1992. Because the minimum wage in Washington state (the highest in the country) is adjusted for inflation, but the Boeing hire-in rates are not, by the end of the contract the first three labor grades at Boeing would be at minimum wage.)

Addressing directly Boeing’s threat to move work, the leaders wrote, “We all understand Boeing may make the decision to locate the 777X outside of Washington, but doing that has nothing to do with our level of pay and benefits. We are faced then with a choice to destroy everything that we have built over 78 years in order to save Boeing from making a decision that puts the future of the company, all its employees (Union and non-union alike) and the stockholders at risk.

“If the company chooses this path of destruction, then they are responsible for it. We, as union members, do not have control over it and have a contract in place through 2016. The customer, the analysts and all of us know this is the best place to build the 777X and stand ready to do that, whether or not this proposal is rejected or ratified.”

Channeling Boeing

On December 26 Buffenbarger posted a letter on the IAM website that channels Boeing management.

There is no hint of any fight in him; and his portrayal of the contract offer is misleading in the extreme. He paints this offer as a substantial improvement over the first offer (the one we rejected 2-1), by counting as an almost $1 billion gain the fact that we are to keep the progression step system exactly as it has been for almost two decades! Never mind the fact that the only reason we kept it is that we voted down the first offer, which he spoke of in equally glowing terms! In his calculation of the “gains,” there is no mention of the enormous cut in retirement benefits.

Even more insidious is his insinuation that the District 751 leadership can’t be trusted to conduct a fair vote, even though it has done so for decades without any dispute. He’s ordering a change in the manner of the vote count. Our tradition has been for voting to occur at all the union halls around the Puget Sound. The ballots are then sealed and transported to the main union hall in Seattle, where they are counted in full view of all union members (and much press) who care to observe.

Now, Buffenbarger is ordering that the votes be counted at each individual site. The sub-tallies will be communicated to the Seattle hall, where the result will be announced. This seems like a little thing, but it’s yet another way of atomizing our membership. For most votes, many hundreds of our members, from factory sites in Everett, Renton, Auburn, all over the region, gather in the Seattle hall. If Buffenbarger has his way, that won’t happen this time. He wants silence.

Buffenbarger spends so much space in his letter on the mechanics of the vote in order to give the impression that something illicit has gone on, or is likely to during the January 3 vote. (This is particularly ironic, given that he now faces the first real election of his presidency, by virtue of a court order.) He flips virtually everything on its head when recounting the history of the 777X negotiations with Boeing. It’s hard to imagine someone doing a more effective job on Boeing’s behalf.

The District 751 leadership is standing firm. The new issue of the District newspaper is like nothing I’ve ever seen before—not here, anyway:

The 751 leadership has called a rally for Thursday, January 2, at 4 pm at the Seattle 751 Hall, to bolster the “no” vote. Interestingly, Jay Cronk, who is running against Buffenbarger for IAM President, plans to be in attendance.

Boeing came at us in the middle of a contract, when we are prohibited from striking. This tactic has implications for labor as a whole. It’s so unlike the contract cycles up through 2008, the last time things were “normal.” In 2011, a year before our 2008-2012 contract was up, Boeing used placement of the new version of the 737MAX plane as leverage to get us to accept an “extension.” That four-year contract, through 2016, is what we’re working under now.

With this new extortion around the 777X placement, Boeing is effectively ending any real collective bargaining, now or in the future.

http://labornotes.org/2013/12/will-boeing-workers-nix-givebacks-forced-re-vote

Alabama has submitted its incentives proposal to bring production of the Boeing 777X aircraft to Huntsville, but state and local leaders haven't revealed details of the offer.
They have said the proposal would involve revisions to the state's incentives structure, and legislators are ready to assist with that.

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle has said the package has a strong regional flavor involving local governments across North Alabama, while Madison County Commission Chairman Dale Strong says he is elated with the offer.

Gov. Robert Bentley said the state was submitting its proposal to Boeing on Monday, a day ahead of today's deadline.

This afternoon, members of Alabama's Congressional delegation issued a bipartisan statement of support for Alabama's proposal to Boeing Chairman James McNerney Jr. The group commended Alabama and Huntsville leaders for their aggressive pursuit of the project.

Members of the delegation haven't seen the state's offer, according to Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce.

"This remains a negotiation and we are party to a non-disclosure agreement as to the (request for proposal) process," he said.

Upon winning the project, assuming that happens, and the execution of a project agreement, the state will provide details of all incentives provided, Canfield said.

Alabama's incentives pool has been stretched with other big economic development projects, including last year's $158 million package to land the Airbus aircraft assembly plant in Mobile.

"We are definitely planning on utilizing legislation to incentivize that project (Boeing), as well as a couple of others," Canfield said. "Our incentives mix, as it stands today, won't allow us to."

States across the country are offering incentives worth billions of dollars to lure the aircraft assembly operation, which would reportedly be worth an estimated $10 billion, with 8,500 jobs.

Details of some states' offers have been revealed. In Washington, where Boeing's manufacturing base is located, lawmakers approved an $8.7 billion package to keep the 777X there, and last week, Missouri legislators approved incentives worth $1.7 billion to lure it to their state.

As a state, Alabama is particularly whorish in its quest for industry. The wages are low, the benefits minimal, and the state gives away everything it can thing of - all of the politicians in Alabama have offered their wives and daughters as "party girls" for Boeing big-wigs (that probably isn't as big an incentive as one might think...).

As a state, Alabama is particularly whorish in its quest for industry. The wages are low, the benefits minimal, and the state gives away everything it can thing of - all of the politicians in Alabama have offered their wives and daughters as "party girls" for Boeing big-wigs (that probably isn't as big an incentive as one might think...).

Bah, Governess(?) Nikki Haley will see ya 20M in tax breaks, and raise ya a few hundred acres, bogus 'wet-lands mitigation' included. And for additional sweetner will assure the full weight of the state police apparatus
to keep workers from organizing. If dis-organized labor is your goal SC wins hands down, ya'll are pikers in comparison.

Bah, Governess(?) Nikki Haley will see ya 20M in tax breaks, and raise ya a few hundred acres, bogus 'wet-lands mitigation' included. And for additional sweetner will assure the full weight of the state police apparatus
to keep workers from organizing. If dis-organized labor is your goal SC wins hands down, ya'll are pikers in comparison.

Man! I think you're right!


Alabama's jobs advantage over South Carolina disappeared in 2013.

Historically, Alabama has always supported more jobs than the Palmetto State -- in large part because has a bigger population. But as the population gap has been shrinking between the two states, so too has the difference in total jobs.

Officially, the switch-over happened in July. That's when the Bureau of Labor Statistics first estimated that South Carolina's economy supported more jobs than Alabama's. The latest estimates, which count jobs as of November, have South Carolina beating Alabama by 13,800 jobs.

http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2013/12/south_carolina_now_has_more_jo.html

But Alabama will be working on it - no capitalist ass will go unkissed!

The Nikki Haley sales pitch.



Nikki Haley Sells Out South Carolina Workforce


It’s no secret that South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley hates labor unions – you know, the ones who painted the Statehouse where she works, and the thousands of unionized police officers, firefighters, and military employees who keep South Carolina safe every day.

Haley's most recent attack on organized labor took place at a Wal-Mart summit in Orlando. Click here to watch her comments, which were proudly posted to her own YouTube account.

"We don't have unions in South Carolina," Haley said with a smirk. "I wear heels. And it’s not for a fashion statement. It's because we kick. We kick those unions hard. And they will not step foot in the state of South Carolina.”

This isn’t the first time Haley has made remarks to scare her own citizens away from exercising their collective bargaining rights. In her 2012 State of the State address, Haley said, "I love that we are one of the least unionized states in the country."

And she's right. At 4.2 percent, South Carolina has the second-lowest percentage of its workforce in a union.

Unfortunately for Haley, the inconvenient truth is that South Carolina also ranks No. 46 in the country for median income. Fifteen percent of her state lives below the poverty line - good for 41st in the country.
But don’t tell Haley that, because she’s too busy selling out her own people – for pennies on the dollar.

"We don't make you come to South Carolina and conform to our workforce," Haley told Wal-Mart executives who pay their employees an average of $8.81 per hour. "We conform our workforce to you."

And it isn't just rhetoric. In 2012, Haley signed an executive order prohibiting union members from receiving unemployment benefits while they are on strike. Her first appointee to the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation worked for a law firm that boasted its experience in “union avoidance.”

"Nikki Haley continues to make the exploitation of South Carolina workers a selling point for her state," said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. "The fact is South Carolinians need union protection now more than ever. They certainly aren't getting any help from their governor."

http://www.goiam.org/index.php/imail/latest/11841-nikki-haley-sells-out-south-carolina-workforce

Of course she will be re-elected.

Blackmail works.


Boeing's machinists on Friday narrowly approved a crucial labor contract that secured thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity for Washington state but will cost workers their pensions.

The vote of 51 percent to 49 percent to accept the deal means Boeing Co will build its new 777X jetliner and wings in the Seattle area, where Boeing has built aircraft for more than 90 years.

Had the workers rejected the offer, Boeing would have considered making the successor to its popular 777 widebody jet elsewhere, and had received offers from 22 states interested in hosting the new factory.

"This decision means Boeing hopefully will stop pursuit of another site for its 777X program," said a somber Jim Bearden, administrative assistant to machinist District 751 President Tom Wroblewski.

"They held a gun to our head and our people were afraid," said Lester Mullen, a District 751 council delegate who works on the current 777 wing production line.

Boeing's reaction was in stark contrast to the mood in the Seattle union hall where the results were announced.

"The future of Boeing in the Puget Sound region has never looked brighter," Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Ray Conner said in a statement. "This will put our workforce on the cutting edge of composite technology, while sustaining thousands of local jobs for years to come."

NO STRIKE BEFORE 2024

In clinching the agreement, Boeing secured the location favored by analysts and investors, who saw far lower risk in using the factory and workers who now build the 777.

Boeing also ensured that the machinists won't have an opportunity to strike until 2024, when the new contract expires.

The decision drew praise from political leaders who had brought pressure to bear on the union to approve the deal.

"I'm very pleased that the best place in the world to build jet airliners for decades will continue for decades to come," said Governor Jay Inslee in a brief media conference in the state capital Olympia. "This has been a long road, and I respect everyone who has worked on it, but now's the time to come together, go build this airplane. I'm happy about that."

Addressing a concern raised by union members, Inslee said there were safeguards in recently passed state legislation giving $8.7 billion in incentives to Boeing and the industry to ensure the plane maker keeps 777X jobs in Washington state and doesn't open a second line in another state, as it did in South Carolina with the 787 Dreamliner.

After winning the incentives and the contract vote, "it is time for Boeing to hold up its end of the bargain," said Rep. Rick Larsen, whose congressional district includes the 777 factory. "Washington has shown that we stand behind a strong aerospace industry. Boeing should make the same commitment to our state."

Workers had argued that with Boeing earning healthy profits, and its share price at a record high, it should not be demanding that its workers give up past contract gains.

The choice Boeing offered had opened deep rifts between the local International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), which opposed the contract, and its Washington, D.C.-based leadership, which forced a vote on the proposal.

It had also revealed cleavages between younger workers open to the deal and older workers dead set against it. Some 49 percent of the machinists are 50 or older, the union said.

In November, two-thirds of machinists voted against Boeing's first offer, which would have replaced their traditional defined-benefit pension with a defined-contribution savings plan, one of two retirement plans the workers receive.

The union's national leadership negotiated that deal. But local leaders opposed it, saying the take-aways were too great.

In the vote on Friday, members approved an eight-year contract extension that the union said provided $1 billion in additional benefits beyond the prior offer, but that will halt pension contributions in 2016.

SHARP DIVISION

About 600 votes separated yes from no, union officials said. Some members wanted a recount, but the national leaders would not allow it, said Wilson Ferguson, vice president of District 751.

Ferguson said about 8,000 members did not vote, up from 5,000 in the prior ballot in November. The union has about 31,000 eligible members.

Before the vote, a member filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board taking issue with the timing, just after Boeing's traditional closure between Christmas and the New Year, when many workers were away, the union said. The union allowed online absentee voting.

The divide between the local leaders and their national counterparts is mirrored by divisions over the contract that appear to cleave along age lines.

Younger machinists had voiced strong concern that failing to vote for the contract would cost them their jobs as Boeing moves the work elsewhere. The 777X is the last major development on Boeing's books for the next 15 years. If the plane was built elsewhere, it would have slowly eroded aerospace jobs in Washington. The average wage is $29 an hour.

Many older workers, however, had said the pension was sacred and was worth risking job loss.

"There's plenty of aviation work in the world," said Kevin Flynn, an aviation maintenance technician inspector, who has filed a separate complaint against the national union leaders with the National Labor Relations Board for holding the vote against the wishes of a majority of members.

"I'll just have to move to where the work is."

Tom Captain, head of the global aerospace and defense practice at Deloitte, said the difficult decision the union faced reflected the fact that aerospace work can be moved to new locations and that price competition between Boeing and rival plane maker Airbus is fierce.

"Although painful tense and emotional, it is clear that there is a sober recognition of the new reality in commercial aerospace manufacturing," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/04/us-boeing-777xvote-idUSBREA0302220140104

This really sucks, where's bottom?

As noted upstream the date set for this vote was disadvantagous to the union as it was set during a seasonal break when not a few workers would be away on vacation. It is fair to assume that the majority of those were older workers who had the means. That very well might have made the difference in this vote. Nonetheless, the divide between older and younger workers, engineered as it is, bodes ill for the future. This may foreshadow the fate of social security, if any sort of revelant vote even occurs.

This really sucks, where's bottom?

As noted upstream the date set for this vote was disadvantagous to the union as it was set during a seasonal break when not a few workers would be away on vacation. It is fair to assume that the majority of those were older workers who had the means. That very well might have made the difference in this vote. Nonetheless, the divide between older and younger workers, engineered as it is, bodes ill for the future. This may foreshadow the fate of social security, if any sort of revelant vote is even occurs.

This is Bourgeois Tactics 101. Fear, divide-and-conquer, bribery, threat, intimidation, blackmail. The owner class has never had so great a lock on ideas as they have today. There isn't even anyone whispering about solidarity, struggle, conflict, and confrontation. Strike? Few unions will even say the word out loud. All these backward, southern states that brag about hating unions and shutting them down have nothing over any of the union states - unions don't count anymore, anywhere.

Unions are the organized expression of working class strength? If we ain't at bottom yet, man I don't want to see it.

Sorry for the double post, but just saw this from yesterday:


Boeing Machinists gathered with supporters from other unions at the IAM 751 hall in South Seattle last night for a rousing "Vote NO!" rally on the eve of today’s contract vote. The vote was forced on the local by the IAM International. In November members had voted 2-1 to reject Boeing’s proposal to freeze pensions and end them for new-hires, as well as reducing new-hire wages.

Boeing has now presented a proposal substantially the same as the one rejected, but without the new-hire pay cuts. Wilson Ferguson, president of Local A, the largest of four locals that make up District Lodge 751, wryly compared it to a thief who breaks into your house and steals most of what you own, including a big-screen TV; and then returns the next day, offering to bring back the TV and claiming that he's made you a generous gift.

In the Northwest, labor takes seriously "an injury to one is an injury to all.” Despite the fact that it meant implicit or explicit criticism of the IAM International, at the rally rank-and-file members from a broad range of unions were joined by top local leaders of the building trades, Communications Workers, Firefighters, Food and Commercial Workers, Teamsters and SPEEA, the union that represents 25,000 aerospace engineers and technicians, mostly at Boeing. Lynne Dodson, secretary-treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, thanked the Machinists for all they've done to build a vigorous labor movement.

A speaker from FUSE Washington, a statewide progressive political organization, held up hastily gathered petitions signed by 5,000 supporters, demanding that Boeing stop its attacks. Tellingly, when she noted that Boeing had refused to talk with FUSE, workers shouted out that the petitions should be sent to IAM International President Thomas Buffenbarger.

Ferguson said, "I expect this kind of crap from the company, but not from the leader of my beloved union." Ferguson read a letter in a current IAM publication, in which Buffenbarger was eloquent about the need to defend the gains that workers have won over the decades—including defined-benefit pension plans.

Ferguson said the International's letters reminded him of those he'd received from his girlfriend when he left the country to go into the service. She repeatedly professed her love while, well, let's say, failing to remain faithful. Ferguson's message to Buffenbarger was the same as to his lost love: "If you screw my buddies, we're through."

A $9 Billion Bribe

Workers also had nothing but scorn for a group of local political leaders, all elected with labor support, who held a press conference to urge Machinists to accept destruction of their pension to counteract employer threats to move work elsewhere. But, as noted even in the mainstream media, the politicians making the call all have defined-benefit pensions paid for by the taxpayers.

Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, though, makes the politicians look like two-bit con men: he'll retire with a pension of $250,000 per month. For the last quarter, Boeing's commercial division showed a $14 billion profit, with a stunning 11.6 percent profit margin. And that was without what Dodson characterized as the "largest give-away" to corporate greed in U.S. history, a $9 billion bribe voted by the Washington legislature to subsidize construction of a new 777X plane in the Puget Sound—the only place in the nation (and perhaps the world) with a workforce already skilled in the complex process required.

Boeing demanded of other states that entered its bidding war for the 777X that it essentially replicate the facilities that already exist in Washington.

Washington Machinists face unrelenting pressure from Boeing, the IAM International, local politicians, and the media. The International, for example has taken out ads on sports radio.

In 24 hours we'll know the outcome of the vote. For now, Washington workers—and really all workers—owe the Boeing Machinists a huge vote of our own: a vote of thanks for standing up for working people and our standard of living.

See more at: http://www.labornotes.org/2014/01/seattle-labor-rallies-behind-no-vote-boeing#sthash.vOrT6270.dpuf

Just yesterday, the union RnF thought they had this whipped. What will be the action, now? Do they accept this bourgeois version of "democracy"? Who does the union represent - and to what end?

Geez, what do these people expect?

http://www.thebellforum.com/showthread.php?t=109319

Is it just me or is this guy pandering for post term gratuities?


Speaking to the Export Council last September, President Obama said, “I think Jim [McNerney, Chairman and CEO of Boeing], at least, will confirm that I’m happy to go out and make sales. I’m expecting a gold watch—(laughter)—from Boeing at the end of my presidency, because I know that I’m on the list of top salesmen at Boeing. And that applies to all of you.”

Is it just me or is this guy pandering for post term gratuities?

Is this what they call "three dimensional chess"? I thought it was just "sucking up", "groveling", doing the "shuck and jive" - but I could be mistaken, Obama is so complicated...

Is this what they call "three dimensional chess"? I thought it was just "sucking up", "groveling", doing the "shuck and jive" - but I could be mistaken, Obama is so complicated...

Naw, he don't lie to the important people. All that jive is for the 'faithful', mysterious pronouncements from the Sybil to be interperted thru the lens of liberal wishful thinking.

A January 5 article, entitled, “Boeing’s billion dollar threat pays off,” on the investor site The Motley Fool, celebrates the ending of secure retirement for aerospace workers. Gleefully beginning with the statement, “Great News!” writer Katie Spence describes the contract as representing, “...a significant cost-savings win for the company.” Getting to the rationale for Boeing’s assault on its work force, she says, “Therefore, if you’re a Boeing investor, the contract agreement between Boeing and the Machinists union is good news.”

http://www.thebellforum.com/showthread.php?t=109330