Boeing closing Wichita plant

[dusttinbound]

Everyone in Wichita was afraid this was going to happen.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/04/3352031/boeing-to-close-wichita-plant.html

[cooper9411]

Unfortunatley it is a sign of the times

[Enemy Ace]

didn't boeing make all kinds of promises about building aerial tankers there?
ship everything to non union states, god forbid the worker slaves be allowed to make more than an existence living.
If I were the state of kansas/ city of wichita I would be hitting boeing with some huge lawsuits for breach of contract.

[bdk]

Breach of what contract? That was an existing Boeing plant, not something new that Wichita gave them. Much of the heritage Boeing work in the area was taken over by Spirit Aerosystems, which is still hard at work in Wichita making large structural components for BCA: http://spiritaero.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=178

If you read the news, Boeing underbid the contract, possibly by as much as $2 Billion (thus saving the taxpayers a lot of money on a fixed price contract). So by your rules, Boeing should just accept the loss rather than try to cut costs to eke out a profit?

It isn't viable for the company to keep the Wichita military plant open when they have excess capacity elsewhere. BTW, most of the tanker work will be performed in Washington State where there is a strong union presence. I suspect the unions there are pretty happy about that turn of events.

Most of the tanker jobs in Kansas are at suppliers anyhow, not at the Boeing plant, and the plant won't be closing until late 2013- nearly 2 years from now.

If one were to be concerned about the welfare of people in the US, better to retain the work in the US rather than have it relocate to Tolouse.

[The Inspector]

Pretty much echos what I've posted over in the Hangar about this-Boieng owns the former Kelly AFB (now the Port of San Antonio) and has done B-52 and KC-10/C-130/C-17 work there for years. In ITC Boeing is very small player in the facility there as SPIRIT, a Canadian corporation does 99% of the fab work for Everett and Renton as far as fuselages or body sections, engine pylons, etc. and since SPIRIT is going to build the fuselage for the A-350XWB I'll bet they will appreciate the extra space. A large number of the hangers @ ITC are very old in design and layout dating back to the B-47 days and parts of it feel like a perfect place to shoot a creepy movie.
At least the work hasn't gone off shore!

[TROJANII]

Ugh, unions ...

[The Inspector]

and I'll bet that somehow whatever you get paid is linked to a union negotiated labor contract somewhere in your industry.

[TROJANII]

I doubt it. I get only two weeks vacation a year (after 17 years), no pay raise in several years, some medical. But, I also know I wouldn't want to be union either.

[The Inspector]

I meant more along the lines of what your hourly pay rate is based on-

[TROJANII]

I am not aware of any unions in my particular occupation (auto body repair) in this area. More likely pay is kept artifically low due to insurance companies.

[Enemy Ace]

if you can't even qualify to work in an industry that is worthy of having a union then why bitch about them??? sounds a little jealous to me....
Good auto body guys near decent sized cities have more work than they can handle because they are repairing cars on contract with the shop, paid per job. If they are good they get the job done in much less time than the book allows and are on to the next one....it's not uncommon for the better guys in the shop to make over $100k a year and vacation when they feel like it, they just don't bid jobs and go on vacation.
If that's not your situation after 17 years in auto body then something's bad wrong IMHO.

[The Inspector]

Airplanes don't have slotted holes on the parts for alignment

[TROJANII]

Airplanes don't have slotted holes on the parts for alignment

Cars do and they are made (mostly) by unions.

[TROJANII]

sigh ....

Last edited by TROJANII on Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[TROJANII]

if you can't even qualify to work in an industry that is worthy of having a union then why bitch about them??? sounds a little jealous to me....
Good auto body guys near decent sized cities have more work than they can handle because they are repairing cars on contract with the shop, paid per job. If they are good they get the job done in much less time than the book allows and are on to the next one....it's not uncommon for the better guys in the shop to make over $100k a year and vacation when they feel like it, they just don't bid jobs and go on vacation.
If that's not your situation after 17 years in auto body then something's bad wrong IMHO.

No jealousy, just heard enough stories (in the news, people who have worked union, and union replacements) to know that I wouldn't choose to work union if possible.
We are the second largest city in Washington, and not much (some) commission work is being done here. People who have left our shop to the great big money of commission shops realize it is not so great when they get sent home often because there is not enough work and the $100, 000 paychecks aren't there, and that they have to fix comebacks on their own dime.