It's a really great start to 2014, if your name is First Class Corporate
Citizen Boeing, card carrying member of ICE(International Corporate Empire).
"This is simply wonderful", Citizen Boeing cried. "With only one vote to
their thousands, we've won another hard fought victory".
And just how did Boeing win such a concession from their machinist
"partners"?
By the usual, tried and true methods. Intimidation, threatening to take
their marbles to another playfield.
My memories only go back to around 1948 when the machinists struck for a
better living, and Boeing allowed good old Dave Beck and his Teamsters to
offer a sweetheart contract. The feud was a bloody one. Both sides fought
dirty, while helpless old Bill Boeing sat by...drooling with joy.
While not totally broken, the machinists were damaged.
Over the years the little airplane company that began in Renton on the
shores of Lake Washington, put the strong arm on the citizens of Seattle and
the Puget Sound Basin. Always suggesting that there were greener pastures
in which to plant their factories, boeing muscled tax breaks, cheap
property, reduced or deferred utility payments, even rigging Seattle's
annexation of large amounts of land so that the Boeing properties fell
outside the city and remained in King county, where taxes were lower.
And all the time we lived under the threat of this giant industry. In that
sense, Seattle was on the same fast track as Detroit, a one industry town.
And Boeing was right, they were good for the area. Especially if you were
in that favored group of bankers, corporate lawyers, private sub-and
contractors for Boeing But Sports Teams, high end restaurants, working
men's taverns and Hookers also prospered to some degree or other.
And the machinist's union did manage to wrangle some improvements for their
members, despite being an open shop. That means if you worked for Boeing,
you didn't have to join the union, but you got to benefit in any
improvements the union members gained.
But over the years Boeing has been much more kind to their stock holders
than to the folks who have made Boeing a major player in the international
market.
Several years ago Boeing tried to muscle the local taxpayers into some very
expensive improvements to help relieve the traffic jams around the expansive
Boeing properties. Of course Boeing did not feel any responsibility for
having caused this congestion. They insisted that it was the taxpayers
responsibility to make those improvements or they would move their corporate
offices.
The taxpayers dug in and refused to make improvements that they believed
Boeing should pay for. Boeing declared that they needed to have their
corporate headquarters "nearer to the center of the world trade", and picked
up and move to Chicago.
Center of the world marketplace? Go figure!
It will be interesting just how long Boeing continues to be "loyal" to it's
roots. NAFTA, and our great friend President Clinton certainly made it
easier for Boeing to outsource many of it's subcontracts. These are
manufacturers who would have provided thousands of decent paying jobs to
local workers. Now our new best friend, Barak Obama is pushing his own
NAFTA on steroids, which will, if passed, will drain even more jobs from our
American economy.
But don't get me wrong. Years ago I was active in attempting to organize a
factory in Seattle. There is real fear when the boss sends his henchmen
around telling you that they'll pack up and move the entire factory to
Portland, Oregon.
When you have a wife and a small daughter, a mortgage, debts and the threat
of no job? It's a gut grabber.
My sympathies go out to the working class prisoners, forced by fear to
pledge their loyalty to Boeing.
Carl Jarvis
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