The Boeing Co. handed out 900 new 60-day layoff notices to employees on Friday, including 458 to Machinists who build the company’s planes, including the 737 in Renton.
Of the 900 pick slips, about 700 will go to workers in the Puget Sound region.
In total this year, 1,044 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers have received layoff notices.
However, a spokeswoman for the Machinists union, Connie Kelliher, said that a layoff, or WARN notice, doesn’t necessarily mean the worker is out of a job.
For example, of the 190 union members who received a WARN notice in January, only 62 were laid off, all in facilities maintenance. However, 42 of those workers were placed elsewhere in the company, leaving 20 who had no other option for Boeing employment, she said.
The union has made a strong point that the company should retain its skilled workers, because of the huge backlog of orders that are keeping the plants busy now and the prospects of an economic turnaround.
“They were trying to retain that skill base,” she said of Boeing finding jobs for at least some of the workers.
Kelliher said the union and Boeing could meet next week to talk about alternatives to layoffs, including such things as voluntary time off, voluntary layoffs or the elimination of overtime.
“We have a list of things we will propose that will keep the skills base on the payroll,” Kelliher said.
The layoffs are part of the company’s plan announced in January to reduce employment by about 10,000 workers – about 6 percent of its workforce – through layoffs and attrition. About half of those employees will come from the Renton-based Commercial Airplanes Division.
The cutbacks are part of the company’s efforts to deal with the financial effects of the worldwide recession that has cut into airplane orders. The 737, the world’s most popular jetliner, is somewhat immune from the slowdown, at least in terms of production. There is a backlog of about 2,200 737s on order to be built.
Boeing’s operations in Renton provide about 20,000 jobs in the Renton area. Boeing is the city’s largest employer.
Another big employer, Kenworth Truck Co., laid off 430 workers at its plant in north Renton in mid-January because of a significant downturn in truck sales caused by a worsening economy.
About 2,200 layoff notices have gone to Boeing employees this year in the Puget Sound region. The last day of work for those workers will run through May. Last Friday was the last day of work for about 670 Boeing employees in the state who received their WARN notices in early February.
Information about assistance to workers is available at International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
On its Web site, the Machinists union is telling members that it “will continue to encourage Boeing to eliminate all vendors before any Boeing employees are laid-off. In addition, we have suggested other ideas to mitigate the layoffs, such as eliminating overtime, offering voluntary layoffs, bringing back work that had previously been subcontracted or is slated to be offloaded.”
