Everett doesn't stand a chance

I don't want to get too far afield from nautical matters, but Everett has a port, right? Anyway, if you live in the area you are no doubt already familiar with the great debate over whether or not Boeing will site its second 787 assembly line at the existing assembly facility in Everett, or if it will instead build a new assembly plant near another Boeing facility in South Carolina that already builds some parts for the plane. With 787 sales already doing quite well, even in the downturn, and despite some notable problems getting the plane off the ground, the decision is of no small consequence to the economy here, and the primary sticking point for putting the second line in Everett is the historic bad blood between the company and the machinist's union. Much has already been made over the union's apparently ill-timed decision to strike over pay increases last year even as the economy was plummeting and order cancellations piling up. Though the strike ended with a victory for the union, it may prove to have been a Pyrrhic one, having convinced the company to seriously consider a permanent relocation of facilities to non-union territories.

Charleston is one of those places, located in a right-to-work state, with a labor force that has already demonstrated a willingness to discard union representation. Though any such large-scale move threatens to disrupt an already shaky 787 program, something I ran across in the paper this morning pretty well convinces me that the game is over for the Everett machinists.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, the state Department of Commerce is preparing its confidential proposal to Boeing under the code name Project Gemini.

"Confidential proposal?" "Project Gemini?" Whoa! Is that the Department of Commerce, or the CIA? I'd say that indicates a degree of motivation that just isn't going to be matched here in Washington, where Boeing has long been taken for granted. Add the fact that the Charleston labor force, wracked by unemployment, is hungry for even moderately well-paying jobs while the IAM workers in Washington seem to loathe their employer with a seething wrath typically reserved for direct-to-video martial-arts revenge fantasy movies, and it's hard to see what incentive Boeing might have to stay. Reporters keep pointing out that it's a lot of effort to get one of these things up and running in a new place, and that Boeing has already invested a lot here in Washington. As someone who has recently moved, I can certainly understand that moving is a pain in the ass, and I suppose it's even harder if it's not just your house, but a massive and complex aircraft final assembly facility, but if you've got no prospects for future improvement in one place, it doesn't matter much what your sunk costs are, it's time to make a change and go somewhere else. You're just throwing good money after bad at that point if you stick around.

If the IAM doesn't come up with a secret proposal and a cool project name of their own soon, I'd say they are in a world of hurt!