Boeing Co has delivered layoff notices to more than 400 members of its professional aerospace labor union, part of thousands of cuts planned as the company struggles to recover from financial and regulatory trouble as well as an eight-week strike by its machinists’ union.
The pink slips went out last week to members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the Seattle Times reported.
The workers would remain on the payroll through mid-January.
Photo: AFP
Boeing announced last month that it planned to cut 10 percent of its workforce, about 17,000 jobs, in the coming months.
Boeing chief executive officer Kelly Ortberg told employees the company must “reset its workforce levels to align with our financial reality.”
The SPEEA said the cuts had affected 438 members. The union’s local chapter has 17,000 Boeing employees who are largely based in Washington, with some in Oregon, California and Utah.
Of those 438 workers, 218 are members of SPEEA’s professional unit, which includes engineers and scientists.
The rest are members of the technical unit, which includes analysts, planners, technicians and skilled tradespeople.
Eligible employees would receive career transition services and subsidized health care benefits for up to three months.
Workers would also receive severance, typically about one week of pay for every year of service.
Boeing’s unionized machinists began returning to work earlier this month following the strike.
The strike strained Boeing’s finances.
However, Ortberg said on a conference call with analysts last month that it did not cause the layoffs, which he described as a result of overstaffing.
Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial and regulatory trouble since a panel blew off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX plane in January.
Production rates slowed to a crawl, and the US Federal Aviation Administration capped production of the 737 MAX at 38 planes per month, a threshold Boeing has yet to reach.
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