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

Content: Recognizing that the company was looking to win major concessions to keep its assembly operations in Seattle, the engineers’ union denounced the auction as “corporate extortion of the communities and people who have long supported Boeing.” Boeing wanted a lot more (financial) support, and the state's elected officials were eager to provide it. Governor Gary Locke got his way, and Boeing ended up with a package of research & development tax credits and cuts in Business & Occupation taxes (the state’s substitute for a corporate income tax), sales taxes and property taxes that together were estimated to be worth $3.2 billion over 20 years. As a result, the aerospace industry, which had been the state’s biggest source of business tax revenue, would see much of its tax liability disappear. The state also raised gasoline taxes to fund transportation improvements, overhauled the unemployment insurance system to reduce costs for employers and tightened up on workers compensation claims. Boeing responded favorably to all this, selecting its long-time assembly operation in the Seattle suburb of Everett as the production site for the Dreamliner. It later emerged that the state also gave Boeing $32 million for training costs plus other “sweeteners.” The strategy was successful, though there were lingering suspicions that Boeing never seriously considered leaving the Seattle area. Not that Boeing confined its panhandling to Washington state. It made major efforts in at least two other jurisdictions to obtain government underwriting: