Boeing looking at Everett, other sites for second 787 production line

A standoff between Boeing and the Machinists union that could thwart Everett's chances to win the second 787 Dreamliner production line became clearer at an aerospace conference in Lynnwood on Monday.

Boeing is pushing for a no-strike deal that would influence the decision, which may come by the end of the year. But the International Association of Machinists (IAM) sees no need to reopen the current contract, signed last fall after a two-month strike, and is working toward the next scheduled contract in 2012.

"There's a disconnect," Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon conceded. "It has to be resolved."

Earlier in the day in Charleston, S.C., Dreamliner program chief Scott Fancher officially unveiled the company logo on the side of its newly acquired fuselage-assembly facility. He told the new Boeing employees there of the likely schedule for a decision and said both Charleston and Everett are on the plane maker's shortlist.

Boeing declined to confirm a report in the Charleston Regional Business Journal that Fancher indicated there are two other unnamed cities being considered.

In a separate development in Charleston, a worker filed a petition last Thursday — the day Boeing formally closed on the purchase of the operation from its 787 partner, Texas-based Vought — to decertify the Machinists union at the plant. That will likely trigger a vote that could oust the union two years after it organized the factory.

Because of discontent in the Charleston work force over the contract the IAM agreed to there last November, that move has a good chance of success.

If the decertification goes through, Everett will be competing against a nonunion facility for the second 787 line.

The worker told the Business Journal he hoped getting rid of the union would help win the second line for Charleston.

The news from South Carolina added a sense of urgency to the Lynnwood summit of Pacific Northwest political leaders and representatives of the state's aerospace industry — a conference starkly billed as "Saving Washington Aerospace."

Yet a clear discrepancy emerged there between the Machinists, Boeing and politicians as to the deadline for what needs to be done to win the new 787 line.

Larry Brown, IAM legislative and political director, said the union is working with Boeing to improve relations.

He said the union proposed to help Boeing be more flexible in its production by deploying machinists to a mixed assembly line that could roll out either 787s or 777s, according to demand.

"Boeing already has the tools, the facilities and the experienced workers in place to open the second 787 line here," he said.

Brown said the union hopes to raise the level of trust sufficiently so that the contract negotiations in 2012 don't end in another strike.

"The only possible guarantee of no-strike when our current contract expires is for Boeing and the Machinists union to be committed to negotiating a settlement and not a strike," Brown said.

"We have time to build the kind of relationship we need to make that happen."

In contrast, Boeing's Fred Kiga, vice president of state and local government relations, reiterated that management wants a long-term, no-strike agreement and wants it in place well before the current contract ends.

"I don't believe we have until 2012," said Kiga in an interview.

"We at the Boeing Company have a sense of urgency about finding production stability."

Kiga said choosing a final-assembly site somewhere other than Everett would, in the event of a work stoppage at one plant, give Boeing an alternative to keep its jets rolling out.

In his speech at the conference, Kiga decried the "20-year pattern of labor disputes and strikes" with the IAM and expressed optimism about the current talks with the union, which he called "long overdue."

"We intend to continue the conversation," Kiga said. "We have an opportunity. We have seized it. ... We're hopeful we can take the risk of labor stoppages out of the equation."

"Nobody wants to participate in the decline of the aerospace industry in Washington," he said.

Politicians at the Lynnwood summit encouraged the two sides to come to an agreement, though they offered advice gingerly because last week IAM international President Tom Buffenbarger in an interview asked politicians to "butt out" and leave negotiations to the union.

The summit's keynote speaker, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, said the people of Washington and their elected representatives have a serious stake in the outcome, but conceded that only the union leadership and Boeing management can get it done.

"The Hatfields and the McCoys have to stop feuding," said Dicks.

He said the loss of a second 787 line could well lead later to the loss of an assembly plant for a new jet to replace the 737 toward the end of the next decade.

Dicks said the outcome of the IAM/Boeing talks could prove to be "Washington's finest hour or the most dismal setback and a loss of national leadership."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com