Precious little, if any, of the 7E7 will be constructed in Seattle. Major sub-assemblies built overseas will be flown in on 3 specially modifed 747s and "snapped together", most likely at the Everett plant but who knows, corporate is even jerking that one around for maximum political gain. An estimated 800 US workers will do the "snapping", or final assembly, and about half that many will do the flight test and customer handoff. Meanwhile almost 25,000 workers in the Puget Sound region have been put out to pasture with little to no chance of recall in the current economic downturn and the poorly executed plan for introducing new technology airplanes into the Boeing Stable to compete with Airbus. IMO Boeing should have had a plan to develope an entirely new family of next generation airplanes twenty years ago. All we have done is build one "all new" airplane model since the 757/767 family designed back in the early eighties, twenty years ago. We knew about airbus then and what they were doing and were capable of. Our corporate executives failed the company.
Now Boeing is taking advantage of the horrid business climate to completely reshape their manufacturing philosophy. Soon all Boeing will be doing is the final assembly, check out and finally stamping the name "Boeing" on the ID placard. "Built in the U.S.A" will no longer be honestly applicable.
"Built by Global Partners" is the future of Boeing. Even then our global partners, including China, will no doubt be taking notes
and developing their own processes for the inevitable counter to the Western manufacturing giants, Airbus and to a more and more lessor extent Boeing.
So, the old adage "If it aint Boeing, I aint Going" will soon no longer be an endoresment of the skill and resourcefullness of the american worker. That phrase which has stood and served the working class for so long is losing its credibility rapidly. Instead, it will be a sad and inevitable ode to globalization.
Boeing is sacrificing the american worker in the name of corporate greed and share holder value. Of course under the guise of "we must do this to survive". BS is what it is. They are endangering the security of the american economic system and skipping out on the american worker, their benifits and retirement, robbing the federal treasury of collected income taxes and basically hard screwing those that have brought the legendary company unbridled success through sacrifice for 80+ years. Its a LOSE-LOSE proposition imo. Of course Phil Conduit and Harry Stoneciphor and a cadre of elite corporate officers are accumulating great wealth at the expense of everyone else.
Sad to this employees eyes. In this view I almost prefer Airbus. But hey, unless Im at the Yoke I prefer not to fly at all.
Just my opinion.
