Although Boeing (BA) has been slow to restart production of the planes built by its unionized workforce and has been laying many of them off amid a year of struggles, the company announced it would be making a big investment in a non-unionized plant.
The planemaker said last week that it would be sinking $1 billion in the South Carolina plant where it builds 787 Dreamliners and creating 500 jobs there.
“I’m thrilled for this next phase of growth, which is made possible by our incredible teammates and the confidence our customers have in our airplanes,” said Scott Stocker, the Boeing executive in charge of building 787s, in a statement accompanying the announcement. “This decision reflects Boeing’s commitment to the workforce, the 787 program and the community.”
When a nearly two-month-long International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers strike shut down much of Boeing’s commercial airline production this fall, the company’s South Carolina plant was not affected because its workforce is not unionized. Though the facility’s safety inspectors formed a union with the IAM in 2018, a 2017 effort to bring the majority of workers there under a collective bargaining agreement failed.
South Carolina’s status as a so-called “right to work” state may in fact have been a selling point for Boeing to build a factory there in the first place. Right to work states, many of them onetime pro-slavery members of the Confederate State of America, have legal frameworks that make union organizing much harder. Boeing announced a plant in South Carolina in 2009, about a year after the last machinist strike on the west coast ended.
“Boeing’s decision to expand in Charleston County further solidifies South Carolina’s position as a leader in the aerospace industry,” South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said. “This significant investment and the 500 new jobs it will bring to the Lowcountry reflect Boeing’s confidence in our workforce and highlights the strength of our pro-business environment.”
One big win for the IAM that came out of its strike, however, was a commitment from Boeing that the company would build the next plane it debuts near its Washington State manufacturing base.
“If the company launches a new commercial airplane program during the agreement, the company commits to build the new airplane model here,” the union told members ahead of the vote that ratified their contract. “All final assembly, wing fabrication and assembly, major components, fabrication, and delivery operations will be IAM work.”
Additionally, the union wants to make clear that Boeing’s South Carolina workers still benefit from better pay and working conditions that they believe the company would not have offered without a union presence.
