Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Monday, July 19, 2010

Boeing...Boeing...Gone

Boeing recently endorsed the reelection of Sen. Patty Murray:
Sen. Murray has been a true advocate and champion for the Boeing Co. and for our 75,000 Washington-based employees throughout her three terms, and therefore we support her in her reelection bid.
That undoubtedly made more than a few Boeing workers chuckle.

Those 75,000 Washington based employees of Boeing only make up 45% of the company's workforce.  What was the percentage when Murray took office in 1995, before Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago in 2001?  On Murray's watch, Boeing has made an inexorable exodus from increasingly business-unfriendly Washington.


You see, despite Murray's grandstanding on the Pentagon's EADS contract, she did nothing when the real crunch came last year, when Boeing selected Charleston, SC as the site of its second 787 assembly line.  Murray didn't get directly involved in talks between the aircraft manufacturer and the machinists union.   

And when Boeing made its inevitable decision to leave, the "Mom in Tennis Shoes" scolded, "It's a corporate company with a board and stakeholders that don't share the culture of a family that we grew up with."
Despite not sharing her "family values," Murray is all too willing to endorse any checks Boeing may write her, a la Goldman Sachs (Boeing and its employees have donated $74,550 to Murray this cycle.)

Meanwhile, the pain continues for Washington workers as jobs that should have been created here continue to hemorrhage away, again on Murray's watch:
Boeing Co. said on Thursday that it will make the interior for some of its new 787 airliners in North Charleston, S.C.

Boeing said it will buy land from Stone Mountain Industrial Park Inc. for the facility, which will be about 10 miles away from a 787 assembly operation in North Charleston. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Construction is expected to begin in the fourth quarter, and the plant should be running by early 2012, Boeing spokesman Tom Brabant said.

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