Sorry, it has to do with Quid Pro Quo politics of "What are you going to do for my district that is going to make me look like a hero and get me re-elected?"

No sheet. Back in the mid 70's a professor drove a Chevy Blazer. He told us about the main bearing that detroit forgot to put in the engine. Hence came the cliche, dont buy a car made on Monday or a Friday.

Read an article somewhere, about the difficulties of a manager at GM. Had an employee that wasnt in his work space, a lot of hours. Found him in a bar during the shift, while on the clock. Had him suspended for several weeks. The union came back and mgt, above her, repealed the suspension and paid his wages. He came in and thanked her for the vacation time to go hunting, with pay.

That and the long term, post employment health benefits that add hundreds, actually thousands of dollars to the price of a new car, are one of the reasons GM is in trouble. Ford was no better in many ways.

Unfortunately, Unions think, they are indestructible, A single male driving for the teamsters gets more than 800 dollars a month going into the cost of his medical. The same amount as a family of four. I had a slow month and the boss added up the hours. I was a half hour short, of qualifying for the 800 dollar medical payment. Actually he was off by one hour. I was referred to another union shop looking for drivers. No way was he going to get hung out for 800 bucks, when he had at least 5 other drivers who could make up the 80 hours it requires to get health care. I dont blame the owner one bit. No profits no jobs.

$800/ month for a family of four ain't sheeit.
Try finding private medical insurance for a family of four for that.

Hell, $800 a month would barely cover groceries for a family of four if the two kids are teenage boys.

i dont disagree. That was late 2006 and I dont know what the current figure is now. Its a flat rate in the contract. Im not under a union contract these days. They were getting about a buck an hour raise each year and there was probably an increase in the medical payment. But a single guy is contributing a lot of his contract value, to subsidize the larger families.
In the beginning of 2006 I was paying no more than 300 a month. I dont remembers exactly, cause, it was a personal plan and they had just raised my rate, cause I had crossed over the 50 age mark. Every five years, they bump you up. Work was slow, so I dumped the insurance.

They had some policies that I didnt like. I bought my glasses thru walmart which was much cheaper than other stores. But they told me, the union would not reimburse walmart. And, walmart did not bill thru the union. I didnt bother claiming it. I dont remember the copay or the deductible. They didnt want us to bank with wells fargo either. But, I dont know any bank, that has a union contract. Teamster national was not supporting the locals, like they should have. Guy who ran CANS out of the terminals wanted to unionize. One of the port terminals' longshoreman walked off the job. National dropped the ball and the walkout didnt pay off.

So, all those folks in SC are a bunch of stupid inbreds and us Lefties in Pugetropolis are God's gift to the green earth? Pretty funny and ignorant at the same time.

If we're so smart up here why do we keep voting in the same folks who have run this state into the ground? Supreme intelligence on our part? Or just plain elitism?

Gregoire walking the picket lines with the machinist this last go around sends a pretty strong message. Remember though, there is no budget shortfall. Hahahaha......

At least now I know WHERE the economy is getting better.......looks like one of GG's suppliers dried up. Guess who will be picking up the slack? Got a mirror?

I don't see it as much about being able to teach people, but more so about providing an incentive to these newly trained people to work hard and produce a quality product.

I don't know what other employment opportunties exist in that area, but I can't imagine it being terribly difficult to find a job that pays at least $14 an hour. I see this leading to a fairly high turnover rate, and a high turnover rate in airplane construction cannot be a good thing.

$14/hr is what they pay tweekers to slap together Mobile Homes.

So you don't refute my statement that this 'move' has only to do with political appeasement, since it doesn't significantly affect the bottom line?

That's a pretty good living wage for someone to drive rivits all day long! And they call them self Machinist? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of these Machinist trained within BOEING. Machinist just sounds so official like they have a college degree or somthing. I beleive most have just a H.S education? HIGHLY OVERPAID IMO! I hate unions! They artificially drive up the cost of goods and labor. What happened to the free market were good, honest, hardworking people thrived and the lazy useless scum of the earth, well who cares! Like stated earlier, please correct me if I'm wrong.

just my .02

Boeing is a private business that offers shares to the genereal public. Their number one goal, as with most all businesses it to turn a profit.

Since two recessions back in '99 and '01 Boeing has steadily increased profits. One of the major contributions to this was reducing overhead. Generally speaking that tends to be labor. They did this by outsourcing their manufacturing.

Now with this recession, the company is looking for alternatives to increase profits and rebuild their net worth. Relocating manufacturing/assembly has become a very viable option along with overhead reductions, again. Hank has provided some extremely viable statistic to some of the overhead any company in Washington has to deal with. I can add another, health care coverage. This states laws and regulations allows only three health care providers to offer coverage, in doing so the costs of annual premiums has become exceptionally high for the companies that do offer the benefit of providing health insurance.

IMHO unions destroy companies. Historically speaking unions were developed to protect people, provide a safe working enviornment with justifiable wages back in the Industrial Revolution. We now have orginazations, WISHA, OSHA, Department of Labor & Industries, etc., to ensure that people continue to recieve these rights. Unions serve no purpose but to continually demand more/better benefits for less work.

I find it ironic that Boeing employees have the audacity to expect/want more. The company provides exceptional wages, premium health care, 401K, extended educational opportunities, paid sick leave, paid holidays, and a safe work enviornment. WTH, that isn't enough? I'd have to say those are better working conditions/opportunities then most of the general poplulation has.

A few other points people need to consider: Boeing in not a Socialized company, they are not a nonprofit organization, they are a privately owned business. The unions and local government have been beating them up for decades. At some point and time people get tired of this, companies get tired of this, and they are going to leave.

I own a manufacturing company in Washington State, I employ "Real Machinists." Over the course of my career I have worked with a mulitude of former Boeing machinists. As a whole, they were some of the laziest, disconcerning, inexperienced people to work with. In this group of people there was one person who was an asset to the company. He wasn't a machinist, he was a tool maker. From past experiences I highly doubt that I would ever hire a former Boeing machinist.

It's not easy being a business owner in this state, I am confronted with these issues, on a much smaller scale, on a daily basis. I deal with a multitude of taxes, state/federal laws, regulations, enviornmental polices, etc. All of those are costs of doing business and I accept them. But, if the union ever attempted to get involved, telling me I need to pay my employees more, give them better benefits, more days off, etc. I'd tell them to pack sand which would result in moving the company or closing the doors. In all reality that would never happen but the last thing an owner wants/needs is someone telling them how to operate their business.

The employees at Boeing take for granted that they have jobs, 10% of the state doesn't. IMO they are a fortunate group of people. And the state......Well, they are fkn themselves and the people they represent. The plans for relocations by Boeing should never have reached this point. The loss in incomes and tax basis will be devasting to the local community and economy. Lost revenue is tough to get back, kind of paralells lost fishing opportunities.

Not here! I don't blame Boeing one bit. Business is Business! If you could lower your overhead in your busniess by say, 10k a yr, wouldn't you do it?

My point was KK, if in fact a lot of these workers just drive rivets all day long, why would you pay them $25 an hr when you could pay someone say $15 an hr and get the same level of work? I mean how much training does it take to drive a rivet?

they should have never put that pile of [censored] up, what a bunch of dipshits.

No $hit!!

You guys are a crack up. SC people aren't smart enough to build planes cause they're Republicans. Funny stuff there.

I went to work at Boeing about 13 years ago. To get hired I attended Boeing's training class, 6 weeks of unpaid training at the Auburn facility. My 8th grade metal shop class was more intense. Boeing training consisted of learning to drill holes, measure, drive a couple rivets by hand, and cut some metal. Pretty strainuous stuff. The real purpose of the class was to establish who could show up to work on time and follow simple directions. When I started at the Auburn plant I was placed in the Welded Duct building and I built titanium ductwork for the 747. The majority of my co-workers were also new hires. The mantra preached by the "veterans" was "slow down, you will work yourself out of a job". 2 years later I was laid off and I used my union education retraining benies to become a residential appraiser. The medical then was nice, the 401k was nice, watching the politics and other BS go on was entertaining, but as a whole I don't miss it. BTW, my starting wage as a grade 4 mechanic was $13.15 an hour. I was at about $15.25 when I left.

If the folks down south can build rockets and cars, I'm sure they can be taught to assemble an airplane. The foreign car companies sure seem to think so anyway. Toyota and BMW aren't kicking in the door to set up plants here but Sonic has no problem opening a few drive ins here.

Funny they will stand out there for months for a 3% raise--then make no effort when something this big--787 to SC-I would think in force they would Rally for that.

BooHoo, one of the funniest threads I've ever read here.

A kid (now in his 40's) that used to work for me stopped by this summer, on vacation. He's been working for Boeing for 20+ years. Told me that the union and union rules were going to kill the company in Washington. If I remember correctly, he works on wing sections for the 787. Poor Blue Water. Going the way to the dinosaurs. Must be the Republicans fault, though, since all those idiotic workers in South Carolina keep electing them.

On another vein, how's that union thing working out for Detroit? What's the median price of a home in Detroit these days? Pooooor babies.......lmao

Nobody noticed when they mentioned there would still be some experienced mech's in SC making $26 an hour that the article called them "contractors"? Contractors normally do not receive benefits. Huge savings.

to some complaining about our states business climate....our state has one of the best business climates in the nation. And if you want to be able to draw from the talent pool that our state draws you should be happy to pay a bit more for that.

seen more business' opening......or closing?
Define good business climate, please.