If you have money without morals, you have only money. - PW (Peanut Whistle) de Santos
Economics is dry, politics is dirty, and morality is ugly. - Bonner Hoff-Kelsey
Economics
There is no communication of warmth, enthusiasm, or tenderness. It contains no gasoline. One cannot be on fire.
Boeing's managers took "lines" from Washington's Puget Sound area to South Carolina. Boeing had found unemployment taxes and worker compensation too high in Washington. Potentially, Boeing's managers may have felt paying a similar unemployment and compensation for 157,100 employees to be ruinous. Boeing is the second largest defense contractor after Lockheed Martin. For Boeing, the making of military aircraft accounts for 21% of its sales. In the Puget Sound area the manufacturing lines are devoted to commercial jets.
The commercial jet manufacture was stopped not long ago by a lengthy strike that cost Boeing $1.5 billion in profits. It is reported that getting back that amount of money will take years. Aviation centers are difficult to create, but easy to destroy. With many strikes, and little hope of improved relations with the union that was involved in the lengthy strike, Boeing's managers decided to take certain lines from Washington. It is presumed they considered an aviation center had been destroyed.
All the managers of Boeing had wanted, so it was reported, were no strikes. No wages or benefits were to be cut. They wanted no strikes for 10 years. Long talks ensued. Some experts have said the Boeing's managers then used such talks to gain leverage on South Carolina to exact the best deal.
The talks mentioned in the previous paragraph were with THE union in these matters. That union is always referred to as "the machinists" union. By the dictionary, machinists fabricate, assemble, or repair machinery. If one "machines" then one reduces or finishes by turning, planing or milling and filing. That is one definition. As for what the managers of Boeing do, they manage.
This union formally is known as the International Association of Machinists or IAM. There are 18,000 machinists in this union in the Puget Sound area, Portland, and Kansas. The members of the union employed by Boeing are on average 47 years old and Boeing pays them $60,000 per year.
The wages are as they are since the union has stated that they stood up to Boeing and had a multi-national (company) to do the right thing. The "right thing" encompassed defeating all takeaways. The Kansas union members were not to be treated any differently. Not allowed was a denial of retiree medical benefits for new hires and operators would not be allowed to run more than one machine at a time. Also, suppliers and vendors would not be allowed to install parts. Outside vendors could deliver parts to some areas of the factory but not to the line.
More of the right thing entailed a 15% pay raise over 4 years (5%, 3%, 3%, and 4%) with minimum hourly wage to be increased by $2.28. A ratification of the agreement bonus of $2,500 was paid. Meanwhile the union stated that it had delivered on what few Americans have, economic certainty and quality benefits. After all, the union noted, Boeing is profitable because of the workers and so the workers wanted a bigger share of the profits.
Even so, the union asserted, that on behalf of its membership, it offered to Boeing the assurance of no strikes for 10 years. The unionists reported that Boeing's representatives seemed stunned by the offer. This offer amounted to an immense concession. Boeing took the lines to South Carolina.
Politics
There is defilement. It can get hot. The fiery vulgarity is objectionable but usually necessary.
Some people remaining in Washington and given to politics did propose a special session of the state legislature solely for the purpose to offer further inducements to Boeing to keep the lines in Washington. These inducements or incentives have a long history in Washington.
Governor Gregoire of Washington put forward no new inducements or incentives. She found Boeing's managers should have been satisified with the quality of life in Washington. There were plenty of smart people in Washington that can build planes on the lines. She additionally noted that Boeing is already in Washington. While already there about 6 years ago, Boeing and its managers were offered $ 3 billion in inducements and incentives. Tax cuts for Boeing have remained in place for many years.
Perhaps the Boeing managers did not find Washington progressive enough. Apparently they did not mean the regressive taxes Washington has imposed on itself. It is progressive to fail to enact tax measures that would have altered the newly gone Recession by becoming more regressive? The poor people of Washington pay 17.5% of their income in taxes while the rich of Washington pay 3.3% of their income in taxes. In 2003, a weighty report concluded affirming the already well known regressiveness of the Washington tax code. Nothing has changed except tax exemptions for special interests. Washington's tax system remains the most regressive tax setup anywhere in the United States.
Elsewhere in the United States is the winner of the Boeing lines. The state of South Carolina offered inducements and incentives in a fresh environment where $14 per hour would be the going rate as opposed to the Puget Sound's $28 plus benefits. Kmart and Walmart and fast food managers in South Carolina may be expected to lose employees big time. Though it is known that others question if the terrible high school graduation rate in South Carolina will adversely affect the labor pool of qualified applicants.
Those on the lines in South Carolina, at Charleston, are being driven hard to get that $14 and Boeing must bring in contractors at $26 per hour to keep up the pace. South Carolina has America's fifth highest rate of unemployment. The workforce is nonunion. South Carolina is a "right-to-work" state and also a "at will" state. Its Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation says employees can be fired "for any reason, a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason".
For whatever reason, State funding for training at technical colleges is in place. This funding was provided by the same politicos who distributed favors as needed such as in the case of sales tax exemptions. Certain bills in the state legislature were passed by voice vote.
For Charleston, they already have a site where two factories are side by side and put out more than half of the fuselage for a 787. These plants are adjacent to Charleston International Airport where the largest planes built can land. To and from the airport is via a useful highway network. If that isn't enough, Charleston has a deep water port.
Neither Politics Nor Economics
Well, after all, what is ugly isn't beautiful. As the saying goes, that goes without saying. Secular prelapsarians, before enormous corporations and large unions and colossal state governments, had abundant aphoristic expressions in their grasp. Then the very pretty scale of involvement got warped by increase into the ugly and the equivalent of the morally offensive.
In the past, for individuals, a bribe as an interaction to influence conduct or judgment was ugly. In another past, it was a morsel given to a beggar. Boeing is hardly a beggar, nor does the International Machinists Union deal in morsels. But both bribed the other and the state governments had given or were giving bribes. Calling the bribes "inducements" or "incentives" does not alter what transpired.
Why should Boeing a big, bad corporation need bribes? Why should they take them? Are there American corporations now in existence that would refuse such bribes? It is now the way business is done? In Brazil, bribery, to get business done, is reputed to be widespread. Perhaps it is a matter of scale. That is, if your corporation becomes a certain size, then bribes are in order.The size of the corporation seems to have nothing to do with what transpires in Brazil. They use bribes, it is said, without much aforethought. Small time hoods and punks give and take bribes.
Such giving and taking is also prevalent in the United States. So why should one expect such activity once scaled upward, to not be the "right thing to do"? Two state governments, Washington and South Carolina, offered bribes. Boeing attempted to bribe the Union and the Union attempted to bribe Boeing. So there are better bribes and worse bribes? If everyone does it why show concern about the outcome? Is the irritation the Union showed justified?
Were they attempting to uphold a variant of "honor among thieves"? They got "a multi-national" to do the right thing. No takeaways. No acceptance of insults. Make Boeing pay them for the strike. Since the Union is responsible for the success of Boeing, then Boeing must make appropriate payment to the Union.
Strikes are lawful. It is illegal for employers to retaliate against employees for engaging in lawful activities. The union, some have said, found Boeing's desire to avoid strikes by taking the lines to South Carolina as unlawful intimidation and so the National Labor Relations Board could order Boeing back to Puget Sound. This NLRB action would be a protest against "union-busting". The Union could decide to start a punctilious work-by-the-rules regime. But don't they have work rules already? Such a Union would be a priggish one.
Do the Union members give a damn? The citizens of two state democracies have never opposed bribery by their governments. Do they give a damn? The last leg of the business of bribery triangle, Boeing, has had comparatively little reported about its role. After all, it only needed to accept the bribes. It did.
All of this so airplanes can be constructed to take people from here to there. Meanwhile Boeing vs. the Union and WA vs. SC were like large rabbits in small pens. They began to castrate each other. By then, too late, what is last least effective is sententious commentary. Though all the parties involved haven't got it, they used it. Lacking in authenticity, they wanted it. No reporting of the triangle ever mentioned it. There is only an historical pertinence for it. The "it" is "morality".
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