SEATTLE (AP) – Boeing has issued layoff notices to more than 400 members of its airline workers union, part of thousands of layoffs planned as the company struggles to recover from a financial and regulatory crisis and an eight-week strike by its machinists. ‘the union.
The pink slips came out last week for members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEA, the Seattle Times reported. Workers will continue to be paid until mid-January.
Boeing announced in October that it plans to cut 10% of its workforce, about 17,000 jobs, in the coming months. CEO Kelly Ortberg told employees that the company must “reorganize its staffing levels to match our financial reality.”
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEA, union said the cuts affected 438 members. The union’s local chapter has 17,000 Boeing workers based in Washington, with others in Oregon, California and Utah.
Of those 438 employees, 218 are members of SPEA’s technical staff, which includes engineers and scientists. Others are members of the technical department, which includes analysts, planners, technicians and skilled traders.
Eligible workers will receive job transition services and subsidized health care benefits for up to three months. Employees will also receive severance, usually about one week of pay for each year of service.
Boeing machinists who are members of the union began to return to work earlier this month following the strike.
The strike disrupted Boeing’s finances. But Ortberg said in an October call with analysts that it did not result in layoffs, which he described as the result of overstaffing.
Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial and regulatory trouble since the crew blew up an Alaska Airlines plane in January. Production rates dropped to a crawl, and the Federal Aviation Administration halted production of the 737 MAX at 38 planes per month, a limit Boeing has yet to reach.
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