Fairness is the issue, and Boeing seems to be crashing and burning
The story "Boeing strike on hold" [Times, page one, Sept. 4] covers the key bases. Yes, assembly-line workers in all industries are anguished by the outsourcing that globalization has brought. Unfortunately, there is no alternative for today's "cost-focused" multinational corporations.
With its aircraft wings built in England, even Airbus uses outsourcing. But for the aerospace industry, foreign-built subcontractor parts also help obtain aircraft orders from those same countries.
The article touches on another key annoyance for American workers, and not just Boeing's: "Boeing's offer increased the basic monthly retirement pension from $70 to $80 per year of service." We can understand the workers' frustration when the article goes on to state that, "soon after the initial offer from Boeing last week, Machinists started forwarding around e-mails from a 2006 Boeing filing with the Securities Exchange Commission, showing that at that time, low-level executives got monthly pensions of $400 per year of service and top executives got $4,000 for each year of service."
So, $4000 vs. $70? Bingo. Boeing cannot, at the expense of its highly trained workforce, try to have its cake and eat it, too. It's time for Boeing executives to set an example by cutting the huge disparity in pay between themselves and line workers. This is a troubling national syndrome, not just a Boeing anomaly.
If the executives took a 30 percent pay cut, agreed to no bonuses and capped all executive monthly pensions at half their current amount, they could go to the workers and say that "we are now trying our best to do our part, and we will increase your pension — not salary — benefits to the same equivalent level." The executives would still make millions.
We're in this together. Now help us out so we can all keep the 787 on schedule. Fairness is the issue. Boeing needs to do its part.
— Lee Gaillard, Saranac Lake, N.Y.
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