Boeing has sent layoff notices to more than 400 members of its professional aerospace union, part of thousands of layoffs the company plans. finance and regulations there are problems eight week strike his Machinists union.
The pink presentations went out last week to members of the Professional Aerospace Engineering Employees Association, or SPEEA. The Seattle Times reported. Employees will remain on the payroll until mid-January.
Boeing announced in October that he planned to cut 10% of the workforce, around 17,000 jobs, in the coming months. CEO Kelly Ortberg told employees that the company “needs to reset its staffing levels to align with our financial reality.”
The Professional Aerospace Engineering Employees Association, or SPEEA union, said the cuts affected 438 members. The union’s local chapter has 17,000 Boeing workers, mostly based in Washington, with some in Oregon, California and Utah.
Of these 438 employees, 218 are members of SPEEA’s professional unit, which includes engineers and scientists. The rest are members of the technical unit, which includes analysts, planners, technicians and skilled traders.
Eligible employees will receive career transition services and subsidized health benefits for up to three months. Employees will also receive severance pay, usually about one week’s pay for each year of service.
Boeing’s union machinists began returning to work earlier this month after a strike.
The strike strained Boeing’s finances. But Ortberg said in an October call with analysts that he was not affected by the layoffs, which he described as a result of employee overreach.
Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has had financial and regulatory problems a the panel blew off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane in January. Production rates slowed and the Federal Aviation Administration limited production of the 737 MAX to 38 planes per month, a threshold Boeing has yet to reach.
