Huge tax breaks for Boeing weren’t tied to jobs; 2,000 jobs to be cut, moved from Washington

Just what does Boeing owe Washington state after getting nearly $9 billion in tax breaks? That’s the question being asked after the company announced plans to move another 2,000 jobs out of state.

Governor Jay Inslee called the legislature into special session less than a year ago to create tax breaks that would entice Boeing to keep the 777X program in Washington. The legislature granted those tax breaks with no strings attached. It did not tie them to jobs or job levels in the state.

Since then, Boeing has moved jobs out of state, and Monday evening it announced another 2,000 jobs will be going away. These jobs are all in the defense division.

“It’s extremely disheartening and frustrating to see taxpayer’s money go to companies that will essentially use it to move work away,” said SPEEA union spokesman Bill Dugovich.

SPEEA union members will likely see the biggest job losses in this move. Most are engineering support positions for the stealth bomber, cruise missiles, AWACS and the F-22 Raptor, currently located in Kent and Seattle.

“These are people who have devoted their career to this company, but yet, they have an employer who doesn’t value their contributions and doesn’t hesitate to move work away in search of lower wages and tax breaks from other states,” said Dugovich.

Most of the jobs will be going to Missouri, Oklahoma and Florida.

These cuts are not expected to have an impact on the production of defense division airplanes, like the sub-hunter built in Renton and the refueling tanker being built in Everett.

Boeing said it is making these moves to make the company more efficient and streamlined. These jobs will be moving closer to where the work is being done. Defense division CEO Chris Chadwick said in a statement that it was a difficult decision because of the impact he knows this will have on employees in Puget Sound.

SPEEA released its own statement about the cuts. It doesn’t believe many of its employees will be transferred into these jobs or find work in the commercial division, as the company is promising.

Dugovich said it’s no longer fun to be at Boeing. “It’s not an enjoyable place to work for many of them anymore,” he said. “It is very difficult to go to work and devote yourself 100-percent to getting the job done when you are in fear every day that your work may be going somewhere else.”

SPEEA and the Machinists Union will continue to lobby the legislature and the governor to change the tax breaks given to Boeing and tie them directly to jobs.

It’s something they warned lawmakers about last year. “There’s no reason that our state should be giving tax breaks to corporations so that those corporations can take jobs elsewhere,” Dugovich said.

Boeing will be outlining its plans to employees on Tuesday.