Cog in the machine...

I'm walking around the second floor of the Plant 2 Cafeteria, trying to track down one of the two coworkers I need to talk to in order to complete a job for The Boss, who's had to have other folks try to cover my work during my negotiation absence. So I'm trying to get hir job done, but I keep getting pulled away by coworkers who'd like to find out my take on negotiations.

While I'm not willing to give up the detailed lines of the contract, I'm more than happy to give everyone my perception of the colors. So I'm over at my friend and coworker Brian "Sign the freakin' card, Brian" Hickman's workstation, talking to him and Patty and Joe and some others about what's been going on over the past week or so when someone there asks me how I'd vote the offer as it stands today. I honestly answer "No." Hearing that, one of my other coworkers, previously believed to be concentrating, head down, at hir computer, turns and asks if I'd really be willing to vote myself out of a job.

I replied that "vote myself out of a job" really wasn't one of the likely options here. Oh, sure, Boeing has been more than willing to threaten to piece us up and sell us out and the So Called Liberal Media has been more that willing to repeat that threat. But they would much rather sell us off in one big piece, so they don't have to go through this costly process over and over and over again.

And it's not like we don't have other folks interested in buying our "house," whole. For example, I'd direct y'all to this news story:

GKN has pulled out of the running to buy Boeing's Wichita commercial aircraft division for around $2bn. The company was long the frontrunner in the race to buy the Kansas fuselage assembly plant. Its withdrawal leaves two bidders, understood to be Canadian investment firm Onex and Vought Aircraft Industries. Onex is believed to have tabled the highest bid for the plant.

Now, best I can tell from their initial press release, Onex is paying only $1.5 billion, so if they decide they have to back out of the deal perhaps, ya think, Boeing would consider a potentially higher bid from GKN before trying to piece us out?


-- Bill, who was working the Boeing job today, rather than negotiatin', because Onex isn't ready -- and Boeing isn't willing -- to talk to us right now...