Cog in the machine...

Well, we had our first day of "official" negotiations with The New Boss today, where we picked up pretty much where we left off, the day after the IAM rejected the offer: Onex gave us a counter-offer to our last counter-proposal. Not surprisingly, it looked pretty much like the initial conditions they imposed on us on Day One. (Including, of course, items not yet publicly detailed, stuff like overtime rates and use of PERBUS/NonIND and such.)

Their presentation went about as expected, where we listened and watched Company negotiators as they sang and danced around our questions as to why some takeaway provisions they're offering absolutely have to be the same for all employees, but others need to be takeaways targeted to only us.

We completed the offer discussion early enough to catch lunch in the hotel cafeteria before they closed. We then spent the afternoon comparing their offer to our last counter, wasting time looking for all their changes, because they inexplicably turned off "change tracking" in the Word document we've been passing back and forth.

We then reviewed and discussed the changes, prepared a counter, and returned it to Onex this evening. They are to come back with an offer -- potentially their "final" -- tomorrow morning. (If the final is not tomorrow, it will be soon. Real soon.)


-- Bill, who anticipates your next update coming through more "official" channels...

A respected coworker answers Wichita Eagle reporter Molly McMillin's question asking why any employee would want to decertify SPEEA, a union protecting a good portion of Wichita's workers:

----- Original Message -----
From: [anonymous]
To: "Molly McMillin"
Sent: [datestamp]
Subject: Re: Fw: WTPU Decert Drive Access

I have no idea. I continue to be amazed ANYONE trusts Boeing or Onex enough to not at least want a contract. While not necessarily being a strong union person originally, I really wanted and valued having a contract. The problem is that Jeff Turner and some of the top leaders like an environment where the ones under them do as they say ... because they are under them. It really is a bully environment. If a decree came from the NW or Chicago, then Turner wanted lots of leeway to immediately meet that demand. He is very good at smoozing but is definitely not creative or interested in others.

Turner looks for the easy answer. I have always said that if Turner read a book that said pole vaulters made the best managers, he would decree in annual performance measures that his execs become 18-foot vaulters. Come September, he might ask one how he is doing. After a quick stammer, he would hear that exec is clearing 18-feet. The one next to him would be at 19-feet ... and so on, until most are vaulting over 30-feet ... without ever having to prove it. That is how many of the metrics work at Boeing. It is the facade of saying you are meeting them without really getting the job done. This applies mostly to the internal metrics, but can be seen even at the higher level ones, like Quality. And if a measure ever does come in under, then Turner has a team of folks working a story to say that (a) it was impossible to achieve, (b) the changes in the year caused the miss and without changes they would have made the target, or (c) come up with a different way to measure. Should be real interesting to see the numbers when they try an IPO.

It should be fairly obvious that Turner's objective is to bust the unions ... IAM, SPEEA, and the rest. The IBEW caved because they were at real risk of being completely outsourced to contract companies, similar to the way Eby has worked the construction needs of Boeing.

Many of the non-engineer office workers are sycophants or scared they cannot find anything better. They are more adept at pleasing their superiors than actually getting the job done. That is how they have survived that last decade of RIFs. Those who try to change the culture/systems are met with strong opposition from those in charge (and have done well in the old system). Quite Machiavellian. If Boeing leaders were so good, then why are they not courted to go to other companies ... similar to GE or P&G? They could make more money, there would be more career potential, and the stock options would be much greater.

-- Bill, who's still too busy to write his own material...

From Mark McCormick's "Where did Wichita leaders go?" essay in Wednesday's Eagle

     Somewhere in one of our public buildings, a microphone stands silent.
     It's probably reminiscing about its glory days -- the February morning when politicians worked it the way high-heeled dancers work the performance poles at a strip club.
     Man, what a difference three months and a few hundred layoffs can make.
     In February, when the national media descended on Wichita for the announcement that police had collared the man they believed to be the BTK Strangler, no microphone in the 316 area code was safe.
     But today, in the face of cold-blooded layoffs at the Boeing Wichita plant, those same microphones seem to have taken on the properties of Kryptonite.
     I'm talking about the mayor, council members and every other non-law-enforcement official who saw a publicity opportunity at the BTK news conference, but today has a horrible case of laryngitis...

---

From Randy Schofield's "Dear Boeing/Onex CEOs: You're fired!" editorial in Friday's Eagle

Dear valued Boeing/Onex executive:
     We appreciate the many years that you have faithfully served your respective companies in corporate management.
     But we regret to inform you that you will not be offered employment after the Boeing/Onex sale is completed.
     In fact, the board of directors has decided that the entire top management of both companies should be canned, effective immediately.
     Do not report for work Monday. Your office has been locked and shuttered, and security officers have been given instructions to Taser you on sight.
     In a fairer world, we would have liked to deliver this discouraging news in person.
     Then again, that is the beauty of globalization -- this letter is a lot easier.
     It is only fair that we explain the rationale for these terminations (that's more than you gave Boeing workers, right?)...

-- Bill, who's glad The Liberal Press _finally_ showed up...

I read this "Letter to the Editor" in Saturday morning's paper and rose in standing ovation.

I recently retired from Boeing after working there for 30 years, many of those years in management. I was proud that I worked for Boeing. I was working for one of the great companies of the world. I had the greatest respect for leaders such as T.A. Wilson and Malcom Stamper. These were men who built a company that made the best products in the world. Men who led the best work force in the world. Men who took great gambles with Boeing because they believed in their workers. Men who won those gambles because of the workers. These were honest men, good men, respected and trusted by all.

Today's Boeing leaders are certainly not respected or trusted by the Boeing work force or anyone else. They have displayed a deplorable lack of ethics, ranging from cheating on bids to cheating on wives. They are now cheating their loyal workers. The sale of Boeing to Onex Corp. at the expense of the workers is another show of current Boeing leaders' lack of ethics. While this sale may be legal, it is shameful.

This sale is not a matter of "saving" the company. The Wichita division is profitable. For most of the 30 years I worked there, Wichita was Boeing's most productive and profitable division. Wichita usually earned a return of better than 8 percent. This sale is an effort to enrich a few greedy men at the expense of many loyal workers. All local management involved in this sham should be ashamed.

Okay... in the interests of "full disclosure," I had the privilge of working for this guy for 'bout the last five of his thirty Boeing years and he was the best supervisor I ever had. Honest, open, willing to do the dirty work when necessary, Don got respect as a manager because he gave respect to the folks working for him. He was, and still remains, a "straight shooter" in every sense of the phrase. So it don't surprise me much that he was unable to remain quiet while his Boeing family was under attack.

-- Bill, who's sorry our executives don't seem to understand the difference between "leadership" and "command"...