A Wing and a Prayer : Worker Tension Dampens Joy of C-17’s Reprieve

The C-17 military cargo jet has sparked mixed emotions throughout its troubled history, and the Pentagon’s latest offer to let McDonnell Douglas Corp. build at least 40 of the planes is proving no exception.

“A great Christmas present,” pronounced Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell, noting that the 9,500 people who build the $300-million planes in Long Beach are the city’s largest private work force.

“It’s one thing this city couldn’t afford to lose economically at the height of this recession,” Kell said in reference to the Pentagon’s earlier threat to cancel the project.

Yet many of the workers who put the plane together on the cavernous assembly line near Cherry Avenue don’t share those upbeat feelings at all.

“There’s still a lot of tension. Morale is low,” said Ron Williams, an assembly inspector on the plane, which has been plagued by technical flaws and $1 billion in cost overruns.

“The attitude of my members is ‘Thank God at least they didn’t cancel the program,’ but the work force is very frustrated,” said Douglas Griffith, president of United Auto Workers Local 148, which represents the McDonnell rank-and-file employees.

The Pentagon originally planned to buy 120 of the jets--a cargo and paratroop plane that would weigh 290 tons with a full load yet could land on short, makeshift airfields--at a cost of $40 billion.

But the plane’s many setbacks prompted the Defense Department this week to cap its order at 40 jets unless McDonnell gets the project on track in the next two years. With 20 C-17s already delivered or in some stage of assembly, the Pentagon ultimatum means that McDonnell, its workers and their union are under severe pressure to build the next 20 on time, within budget and without mechanical snags.

If McDonnell fails its probation, the Pentagon will look elsewhere for transport planes, outgoing Defense Secretary Les Aspin said. If it succeeds, total orders could reach 120 and extend the program into the 21st Century.

McDonnell has declined to comment on the Pentagon’s decision. But it is expected to accept the deal early next week. If it refuses to go along, it runs the risk of the Pentagon halting the program immediately.

That the UAW and some McDonnell workers blame management for most of the C-17’s problems is not surprising. The union has a turbulent history with the company--including two strikes in the last 15 years.

But some employees also criticized their colleagues for not pulling together to improve the C-17, and others said the whole work force seems more preoccupied with recrimination than with fixing the airplane.

“Everybody likes to point the finger at each other,” said Ray Gizaro, 37, who works on the plane’s fuselage.

Griffith said the turmoil can be found in the words on the workers’ restroom walls. “What’s written on the walls is anger,” he said. “They’re angry, and they blame it on each other, they blame it on management, and they blame it on their immediate supervisor.”

Yet the union also catches part of the blame. Under the local’s rules, senior workers being laid off from McDonnell’s slumping passenger jet assembly plant nearby are finding new work on the C-17, displacing younger employees.

“We still feel we’re being affected by what’s going to happen on the commercial side,” one C-17 employee said, noting the recurrent rumors that McDonnell will eventually shutter its jetliner business, a rumor McDonnell has repeatedly denied.

Said Mayor Kell: “I know McDonnell Douglas well, and I know they will solve the (C-17’s) technical problems.” In the meantime, he said, McDonnell’s clearance to make at least 40 of the jets “is going to have a lifting impact not only on the work force, but also on the city as a whole.”

Some workers are also sanguine. “I feel good at least to know there’s a good three years ahead of us to build airplanes, instead of the uncertainty of not having any contract at all,” said Shelly Calabrese, an administrative staff worker with the C-17’s wing assembly group.

Others aren’t so sure. Glen Tharpe, 39, a quality assurance inspector, said there’s “a constant fight” between production workers, who want their parts of the C-17 finished; inspectors, who contend the job must be redone, and managers, who can’t seem to clear the logjam.

“Everybody’s blowing their own little trumpet, and they won’t blow in unison,” Tharpe said.