Boeing Briefs Union on Some Plant Closings

Boeing Co.’s largest union said it expects the plane maker to close a small-parts assembly plant and shut some other operations in Washington state’s Puget Sound region, affecting hundreds of jobs.

The workers involved would be retrained and shifted to other jobs, said Tim Flynn, a spokesman for District Lodge 751 of the International Assn. of Machinists, which represents 35,000 workers at Boeing. The union was briefed on the plan this week, he said.

While the union said it is relieved that no jobs will be lost, it warned that Boeing is likely contemplating more sweeping reductions and pledged to resist them.

The aerospace giant has said it plans to consolidate many of its factories to cut costs. The union expects the Puget Sound closures to be announced as early as today. They involve shutting a 300-worker assembly plant near Mukilteo, Wash.; closing a machine shop in Kent, Wash., that employs more than 300; and retraining about 350 tooling workers in Auburn, Wash., Flynn said.

Boeing declined comment on the plans, which were reported in Thursday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

“These are complex decision-making processes and they’ve been ongoing for some time,” company spokesman John Kvasnosky said. “As we reach decisions, we’ll communicate them to our employees first.”

Boeing has said it wants to cut factory space by more than one-quarter, slash more than $2 billion in overhead and shrink its base of suppliers by 40%. The company adopted the goals in July 1999 after two years of disappointing results, including an almost-unprecedented annual loss in 1997.

Shares of Seattle-based Boeing slipped 31 cents to finish at $45.88 on the New York Stock Exchange.