In Seattle Boom, Strike at Boeing Is ‘Just a Blip’ : As Washington State’s Economy Diversifies, Few Fear Walkout Will Trigger ‘68-Style Depression

SEATTLE-When the Boeing Co. took a nose dive 20 years ago, Seattle pretty much went with it. Some wag even erected a billboard on the outskirts of town, asking the last one leaving to please turn out the lights.

But growing Pacific Rim trade, tourism and a steady stream of disgruntled Californians have helped the Puget Sound diversify in recent years.

Now, the projected $25-million-a-week dent Boeing’s current strike will put in the state’s economy is being referred to as “just a blip.”

And, although food banks are stocking up just in case, neither side is predicting a long or bitter struggle between the world’s leading airplane manufacturer and its biggest union.

About 57,000 members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers continued their walkout for a second day Thursday with no new talks scheduled.

Overtime Issue

The strikers, who make up the bulk of Boeing’s blue-collar work force, are demanding their first pay hike in six years and a sharp reduction or abolishment of mandatory overtime, which is currently 200 hours a quarter.

They rejected Boeing’s last offer, which would have increased salaries 4% this year and 3% in 1990 and 1991. Overtime would have been cut to 160 hours a quarter.

Boeing chairman Frank Shrontz Thursday apologized in a telegram to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney for any delays the strike might cause in delivery. Boeing manufactures structural components for the B-2 bomber and other military planes.

The walkout is the latest and biggest in a rash of strikes to hit Seattle in recent months.

Thousands of grocery workers, nurses and carpenters also have walked the picket lines during what turned out to be a summer of discontent.

“People are mad,” said Karen Keiser, spokeswoman for the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

“They were very patient and very accommodating for a decade when the economy was bad,” she said. “There were a lot of concessions--wage freezes, giveaways . . . .

“Well, now the economy is booming and people feel it’s their turn, that it’s time to make up what they gave up.”

Boeing is in its fifth straight year of record sales and employment, and it accounts either directly or indirectly for an estimated one-third of the 500,000 jobs the state has created since 1983.

It is the state’s leading manufacturer.

And, although most agree that the company clearly still drives the region’s economy, what it drives amounts to more of a stretch limousine these days than a Volkswagen.

“We’re the No. 1 factor in the region’s economy,” said Boeing spokesman Harold Carr, “but the general perception is that the area is less dependent on us than it was 20 years ago.”

Other Industries

Port activity, downtown development, biomedical technology, software manufacturing and tourism all have helped make Seattle “a world-class city,” said economist Dennis Fusco.

“We’re all waiting to see the impact of the strike,” said Fusco, chief economist for the State Employment Security Department.

“It depends entirely on the duration,” he said.

The aerospace industry is enjoying record prosperity, and the Puget Sound area remains its capital. Economists don’t fear a rerun of what became known around here as the Great Boeing Depression of 1968-71. The infamous billboard went up, and there were stories of Boeing engineers driving cabs to make ends meet.

Boeing laid off half its work force then, and the region had yet to build an economic cushion of diversity.

“Seattle is booming now,” Fusco said, “not just Boeing.”

“The strike, within one or two months, represents just a blip in our economy,” he added.

“We’ve just grown up.”

At the AFL-CIO, Karen Keiser predicted it would take only “a week” for the strike’s impact to be felt.

“Remember, these people are consumers. We’re not talking about people who sock it away on mutual funds and bonds,” she said.

“They’re buying refrigerators and houses and school clothes.”

On the picket lines, many workers agreed that the short-term strike they expect would have minimal impact on the region’s economy.

“The economy is helping us right now,” said Robert Kazen, a maintenance man for 11 years at Boeing.

“Most of my creditors have already agreed to let me just make interest payments,” he said.

“I think it’ll last a couple of weeks maybe,” said Skip Buckner, a 10-year Boeing veteran manning a picket line outside the company’s giant 747 factory in Everett.

7-Day Weeks

“I earned this time off and I want it,” he said. “For 2 1/2 years, I worked 12-hour days, seven days a week. You know how I spent my vacation?

“Flat on my back in bed with pneumonia.”

Keiser said all Puget Sound labor leaders plan to meet Monday “for some fairly high-level strategizing.”

So far, the machinists have not asked for any sympathy strikes. Fellow unions at Boeing are bound by no-strike clauses which would prevent such a show of solidarity.

Although Carr said “very close to 100%” of the union members stayed off the job, some strikers who entered the plant to pick up their tool boxes seemed surprised by the amount of activity inside.

“There’s a lot of people working,” one striker bitterly told friends on the picket line as he came out with his tool box. “Not just supervisors, either.”

With an $80-billion backlog of 1,603 planes on order, Boeing commands 60% of the world market and has enough work to keep its assembly lines busy around-the-clock for five years, analysts say.

Although supervisors and other non-union workers can fill in to some degree, Carr admitted it was “highly unlikely” that a plane could be built start-to-finish under current circumstances.

Boeing faced penalties last year for late deliveries to airlines, but Carr said contracts can be renegotiated and such fines avoided during labor disputes.

Boeing faced penalties from two other sources Thursday--the state Department of Labor and Industries and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The state said it has penalized Boeing $128,780 for 36 alleged violations, the largest penalty ever proposed against a Washington State employer under the state’s Industrial Safety and Health Act. OSHA announced citations against Boeing for 40 violations that carry penalties totaling $41,530.

The citations were primarily focused on Boeing Advanced Systems operations at the Developmental Center in Seattle, where parts for the B-2 bomber are made.

Of the state’s 36 alleged violations, 19 were related to safety and 17 to hygiene.