Boeing job cuts reach deep as 5,000 here get pink slips
The scale of the layoffs stunned even employees used to Boeing's whiplash employment cycles.
During the company's darkest days in 1969-1970, when Boeing's very survival seemed doubtful, the company laid off 5,000 workers in Washington in one week. Boeing matched that in one day yesterday with layoff notices to Puget Sound-area workers.
The cuts go so deep that in a typical Machinists job classification, everyone hired since 1989 will be laid off. The 3,500 Machinists who received their 60-day layoff notices yesterday included one draw-bench operator who joined Boeing in 1968.
"That's amazing to me. I was in grade school" at that time, said Connie Kelliher, spokeswoman for the Machinists union at Boeing, which represents 24,000 workers.
At the gates of Boeing's narrow-body assembly plant in Renton, most workers walked quickly to their cars on a windy day. Some puffed on cigarettes, waiting to cross the street. Heads were down. There was very little, if any, small talk. Few were willing to discuss it, and they had few words.
"It's pretty tense," said engineer Dan Allen.
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On the way to his car, David Moote watched the second shift walk in. He knew that most of them have less seniority than he does. He was laid off in 1982, but he survived this round.
"Some people are really frustrated, a lot of people are depressed," he said. "Some say they are happy because they are only a couple of years out of school and are glad to get out of here."
Steve Damon, a contract pipefitter, isn't returning to Boeing on Monday. As a contractor, he doesn't get a 60-day notice.
"It's traumatizing to them, but to me, it's normal business. When the work is done, we're gone," Damon said. "They don't give you a notice, they just say 'see ya.' "
Boeing is eliminating 12,000 jobs — about 13 percent of the 93,000 employees in its commercial airplane operations.
Even greater numbers of layoffs are planned for next year as the company eliminates up to 20,000 jobs. In all, Boeing said it could pare as much as 30 percent of its commercial airplane payroll by December 2002.
Boeing executives are making it clear they don't expect to be recalling workers soon. Boeing Vice Chairman Harry Stonecipher told a conference in California that any Boeing recovery would behind an overall economic recovery by up to a year.
Hank Queen, vice president of engineering for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said it could be two to four years before business returns to normal.
Affected Boeing employees were no less stunned for having been braced for layoffs for more than three weeks.
"It's bad," said Bill Dugovich, a spokesman for Boeing's engineering union. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) said 598 of its members received layoff notices yesterday, two-thirds of them in the Puget Sound area.
Boeing has cut that many jobs in such a short time only once before. The company slashed 34,700 jobs in Washington between 1969 and 1970 in the midst of a four-year employment free-fall that came to be known as the Boeing Bust.
In the 11 years since Washington began requiring companies to send out 60-day layoff warnings, the greatest number of notices Boeing has issued at any one time was 3,100 in the early 1990s, said Gary Gallwas, assistant commissioner of the state Employment Security Department.
Boeing's most immediate reason for the layoffs is the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that sent the airline industry into a financial tailspin. U.S. carriers had been losing money even before then because of the slowing economy, and some of them had begun delaying delivery dates of airplanes already on order.
But workers are also dealing with worry about the company's long-term commitment to its birthplace after Boeing relocated its headquarters to Chicago last month. Some employees believe Boeing eventually will close its fabrication division in Auburn.
There has also been speculation that the Renton assembly lines for 737s and 757s will be moved into the company's enormous Everett facility, though Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Alan Mulally recently denied the company plans to close Renton.
Bill Cogswell, a spokesman for Renton-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes, denied that the job reductions were driven by anything other than falling demand for jetliners.
"We never considered taking advantage of a national tragedy," Cogswell said. The simple fact is that "Boeing's customers are not in a position to buy as many products as they were before."
Leaders of SPEEA and the International Association of Machinists Dist. 751, the two biggest unions at Boeing, focused on a two-prong strategy of assisting workers about to lose their jobs and pressing Boeing to minimize future cuts.
Although Machinists received layoff notices at five times the rate for SPEEA workers, engineers and technical workers may face far deeper cuts later. That's because the brunt of the engineering layoffs fell on 1,398 contract workers around the country who now hold positions that could be filled by SPEEA members.
Boeing has another 1,000 contract engineering workers on its payroll, according to SPEEA's Dugovich.
SPEEA's contract requires Boeing to lay off contract workers in surplus positions before union members. But the fact that Boeing decided to retain those contract workers indicates that they may have skills the company deems critical — making it unlikely that they would be let go, Dugovich said.
Without the buffer of contract workers who could be let go, SPEEA members "could see a worse wave in June or the end of next year," Dugovich said.
Kyung Song can be reached at 206-464-2423 or ksong@seattletimes.com.