Boeing Is Asked to Hire Here : Employment: The City Council and Board of Supervisors call on the defense firm not to import B-2 workers from Seattle.

The Los Angeles City Council and the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously called on the Boeing Co. to hire local workers for B-2 Stealth bomber jobs in Palmdale instead of using about 450 employees imported from Seattle.

In separate decisions, the two governing bodies asserted that the Los Angeles area has a large pool of qualified and available aerospace workers, so the Seattle-based company need not maintain its $10-million-a-year, government-funded practice of temporarily relocating its employees.

The two votes added to criticism of the program--in which Boeing pays $25,000 to $50,000 per employee in annual per diem expenses in addition to salaries--already voiced by Mayor Tom Bradley, state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City).

In a response issued Tuesday, Boeing Executive Vice President Jerry King reiterated the company’s position that it has been unable to find enough qualified workers locally. King called the relocations “neither an example of poor management nor fiscal extravagance.”

“We agree that we should hire a local work force to meet our needs to the maximum extent possible,” King said. But he added that Boeing still could not get enough workers with the proper skills, despite holding 11 recruiting sessions in the past 18 months and offering increased wages.

“The practice of moving skilled personnel from one facility to another on a temporary basis is not uncommon in industry, where additional cost is small compared to the cost impact that would result from failure to meet production commitments,” King said.

Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden, who authored the motion that was adopted 12 to 0 by the council, called Boeing’s assertions incredible, considering the thousands of workers in the Los Angeles area who have been laid off.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the Palmdale area and authored the board’s 5-0 motion, called Boeing’s practice a “terrible waste of human talent.” He said nearly 11,000 aerospace workers have been laid off in the county in the past year.

As a result of the board’s vote, the county plans to send a letter to President Bush and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney urging that Boeing use Los Angeles area workers.

About 450 of the 866 Boeing workers assigned in Palmdale have been imported from Seattle. Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this story.