JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — When Boeing Co., announced it was considering moving its latest commercial airliner manufacturing operation and began accepting bids, Missouri immediately threw its hat in the ring.
“For the first time, we all worked together for one common goal and when we don’t keep moving the goal line we can get things accomplished,” Bob Soutier, President of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council AFL-CIO says. “I commend the legislature for doing the right thing on this one.”
Labor leaders announced a 24-hour work schedule on any Boeing related projects, promising to shave more than 2 years off the planned 5-year construction timetable without collecting overtime pay. The announcement was an added bonus from perhaps Missouri’s biggest advantage in the bidding war for Boeing — a union workforce with training and experience working in aerospace that was willing to work with Boeing.
With barely one week to work on a deal worth more than a billion across twenty years, Democrat lawmakers got help from the unions in quieting their own concerns and disseminating information about the deal to their fellow elected officials.
“Due the complexity of the project and the time to get it done, it took a handful of men and women to get info to each and every one of us and I applaud the men and women who work together to accomplish that goal,” Keith English, D-Florissant, says. “Jeff Aboussie, Bob Soutier, Michael Louis and President of IBEW Local 1, Tom George, were all taking leading roles in getting to us, helping us get the information, and then helping us work with the other parties involved to move this across the finish line in a timely and responsible way.”
With labor unions working together to craft a larger deal and the St. Louis chapter of the International Association of Machinists preparing themselves to more openly consider Boeing’s benefits package that was rejected in Seattle, labor leaders were positioned as fundamental to attracting Boeing. Union leaders said they saw the chance to get seriously involved in the passage of the deal as one more way to attract Boeing.
“This wasn’t a response to Right-to-Work, this is what we’ve always sought to do,” Mike Louis, Secretary Treasurer of the Missouri AFL-CIO says. “This was us, as leaders, doing the best we can do for the St. Louis community. We have the workforce and we have the desire to do this job, so let’s show Boeing just how serious we are.
Jeff Aboussie, Executive Secretary-Treasurer for the St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council, said the 24-hour agreement was just one way Missouri could “highlight its strengths,” in the process.
“With our history in St. Louis with McDonnell Douglas and Boeing as well as some leading auto manufacturers, we really felt that a well-trained, well-paid workforce with a long history with this company was one of the best feet to put forward,” Aboussie says. “We really feel that our workers, and through them our labor organizations, we feel we can give Boeing an offer that not everybody can match, and we have to play to those strengths.”
