Title: Boeing | Good Jobs First
Headings: Boeing
Boeing
Case Study of Boeing Co.
SOURCES

Content: In 2003, the Kansas legislature offered Boeing a half-billion dollars in bond financing to build part of the 7E7 at its Wichita facility. Boeing would then be allowed to pay off $200 million in interest by collecting personal income taxes collected from its 7E7 workers. Boeing agreed to the terms, but in 2005 sold its civilian Wichita operations to Onex Corporation, a Canadian private equity company. New owner Onex, which took over the 7E7 fabrication, demanded a wage cut from its unionized machinists, and then renamed the operation Spirit Aerosystems. In October 2005 the state offered Spirit $80 million of the same kind of bond financing – including the diversion of employee payroll taxes – that had been approved for Boeing. South Carolina was one of the “losers” in the 2003 competition staged by Boeing for its initial production facilities for the 7E7 Dreamliner. But in October 2009 Boeing announced that it would spend at least $750 million on a new 7E7 production line and create thousands of jobs. The state's subsidy package was initially estimated at $450 million, a large part of which reflected generous property tax abatements. In January 2010 the Charleston Post and Courier published an analysis of the package that concluded it could be worth more than $900 million. The fact that Boeing became the recipient of a huge amount of government assistance throughout the U.S. has not prevented the company from expressing righteous indignation over the government aid received by its European competitor Airbus.