Boeing defends layoffs during holiday season
By Allison Linn
Associated Press
SEATTLE — As thousands of Boeing employees worked their final shift yesterday, the head of the company's commercial airplanes division expressed sorrow for the laid-off workers but defended the company's actions.
Associated Press
"It starts with, 'I'm sorry' and it ends with 'I'm sorry,' " Alan Mulally, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told reporters. "I wish this wasn't happening to all of us."
Boeing workers stream out of a plant in Renton, Wash., at the end of their shift. Thousands of Boeing workers, mostly in the Puget Sound area, worked their last shift yesterday as the first round of planned layoffs in the company's commercial airplanes division went into effect.
Earlier yesterday, in an interview with KIRO Radio in Seattle, Mulally defended the company's decision to cut up to 30,000 jobs by the middle of next year in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It just gets worse if you don't deal with the business realities," he said.
The first round of 12,000 job cuts, including 7,000 in the Seattle area, was to be completed yesterday. About 9,000 people were being laid off, and 3,000 jobs were cut through attrition.
Another 2,900 workers received 60-day layoff notices in November, and a third round of layoff warnings will be handed out Friday.
Mulally said he knew on Sept. 11 that the attacks would hurt the airline industry and force the aerospace giant to cut production and jobs. With the economy already weakened, it could be several years before the industry rebounds, Mulally said.
Mulally faced tough questions from callers during his radio interview. Several Boeing employees asked about the company's decisions to send more work abroad and to lay off workers just before the holidays.
Mulally defended both decisions. With 70 percent of Boeing airplanes going to overseas clients, he said the company has an obligation to give back to the global economy.
