Some Unemployed Workers Are More Equal Than Others
Welcome to crony capitalism! Laid-off Boeing workers get an unbelievable sweetheart deal. Dominic Gates writes in The Seattle Times:
Thanks to a federal program lined up by their unions, local workers laid off during the current dip in employment at Boeing Commercial Airplanes will enjoy a financial cushion that's much, much plumper than what the average unemployed state resident gets."Compared to what Joe Worker gets when they get laid off, our members have a pretty extensive safety net," said Connie Kelliher, spokeswoman for the International Association of Machinists (IAM).
The U.S. Department of Labor has approved Boeing workers -- union or nonunion, production workers or engineers -- laid off between April 2012 and June 2015 for a package of benefits that includes drawing unemployment pay for up to 2½ years, rather than the regular six months.
The Labor Department ruling also means that if laid-off Boeing workers need to travel, say to California, for a job interview, the government will reimburse 90 percent of the costs.
If they relocate for a new job, the government will pay 90 percent of their moving expenses and provide an additional lump-sum relocation allowance of up to $1,250.
While unemployed, they'll also get a tax credit for nearly three-quarters of their health-care premiums. And they're eligible for a grant of up to $25,000 toward the cost of a degree.
And for those workers over 50, if they have to take a lower-paid job after leaving Boeing, the government will provide up to $10,000 over two years in supplementary pay to make up some of the difference.
All these benefits flow because the Labor Department recently granted the IAM's petition for federal aid under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which is designed to assist U.S. workers who have lost their jobs as a result of overseas trade or outsourcing.
And after a parallel petition from the white-collar union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the government broadened the approval to include all Boeing Commercial Airplanes workers, even nonunion employees.
The Department of Labor explained the decision by saying the company's job losses here can be attributed to outsourcing because Boeing has acquired aircraft parts from foreign countries, "which contributed importantly to worker group separations."
Things are tough for lots of us for lots of reasons, some of which involve foreign trade. You get a deal like this?
via @againstcronycap
Without more information, I'm reluctant to criticize this program. Laid off Boeing workers (both professional staff and regular workers) have the option of going to someplace like Iran and working on getting their aircraft flying again.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US picked up the tab for providing subsidized incomes for workers who were laid off from decommissioned nuclear weapons facilities. That turned out to be a pretty good investment.
Factual Interjection at August 1, 2013 12:12 PM
So I made the mistake of getting laid off too soon. My bad.
Cousin Dave at August 1, 2013 12:44 PM
Hey Cousin Dave, me too.
jerry at August 1, 2013 2:16 PM
Tangential but relevant: American manufacturing executives are as potent a bunch of sleazebags as any. They have managed to ignore the bar set by Toyota, but even so American quality far surpasses that available from 3rd world countries where many of our products are now made. Much as I'm an Apple fan, they are dirty too.. I would never fly in a Chinese- or Russian-built airplane.
DaveG at August 1, 2013 3:42 PM
Sweet! Say, who pays for that, the executives?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 1, 2013 3:47 PM
I'm going with the give me some more details as well on why it was done.
It could have been something setup in concert with the DoD so they didn't lose the guys who built military aircraft if congress messed with the budget in a given year.
Jim P. at August 1, 2013 5:20 PM
Nope, I didn't get a deal like that; and won't hold my breathe waiting for one. I know it will never be in the works for me.
As for those of you who say you'll reserve judgement until you get "more information," what more information do you need? You mean like a lot of those guys will be milking the program for all its worth? Doesn't "Detroit" mean anything to you?
I know it won't be there for me except when it comes time to PAY for it - then we're all involved.
Charles at August 1, 2013 7:16 PM
Would you rather pay $40M to maintain a plant or $1B to restart it?
Jim P. at August 1, 2013 9:52 PM
Yeah Jerry, I worked at the Huntsville location, which has been losing contracts due to incompetent management. While the site exec is busy getting his panties in a twist because he doesn't think the site employment is "diverse" enough, his minions are blowing bids that should have been slam-dunk wins.
To some of the other commenters: There is a problem in the DoD world in that programs often suffer from roller-coaster funding, which causes contractors to have to lay off people in one budget cycle and re-hire them in the next. The re-hiring never goes that well; people have found new jobs in the meantime and aren't necessarily enthusiastic about coming back to a program that screwed them the first time. And every time it happens, a certain percentage of the people impacted leave the industry for good.
Of course the real answer is for the DoD to get its act together, but it can't do that because the root of the problem lies in Congress and the White House. Irresponsibility at the top always creates difficulty further down (or, to put it less politely, sewage runs downhill). So the DoD is often forced into all kinds of programmatic gymnastics in order to maintain an industrial capability that it knows it's going to need later. And until there's a fundemental change in attitude in Washington, this situation is not going to get better.
Is that the situation in this particular case? The fact that it's Commerical Airplanes makes me suspicious; that should not have much of a dependency on any DoD work. I think it's got more to do with Boeing's disputes with the federal government (e.g., the dust-up over the non-union Charleston plant) and the state of Washington.
Cousin Dave at August 2, 2013 7:12 AM
Cousin, the same thing happens with the DOE. We have no way to plan beyond the current budget year.
That's a cast-in-stone consequence of having to use taxpayer money for the job, administered by a Congress constantly dropping the ball for some reason.
NASA also was found to be padding their job list -- when the Columbia Accident Investigation Board looked, theywere spend from $1 to 5 billion per year on project work that would never fly, to keep their infrastructure working. You know the Shuttle was never even close to reducing costs, as was promised... then Orion was canceled.
Well, the Chinese can fly.
Radwaste at August 4, 2013 9:10 AM
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