Message from District President Tom Wroblewski to 751 Members in Response to Doug Kight's 10/29/09 Memo

October 29, 2009 - "I'd like to respond to Doug Kight's e-mail to managers explaining what he says were the stumbling blocks that kept us from reaching an agreement to keep the second 787 line in Everett. It's misleading, it's disappointing and it's not truthful.

Boeing would not commit to any agreement to keep the second line in Everett. That, and only that, is the reason why our conversations went nowhere.

The proposals Boeing e-mailed today were more detailed than anything we heard from the Company during three weeks of face-to-face conversations.

They threw a lot of numbers around while we were talking together, but they were never willing to put them in writing. If they'd been this willing to put numbers in writing a week ago, we might have got somewhere.

We presented them with an initial verbal proposal. They never responded to that first proposal in writing, and never told us what they wanted to see in an agreement -- and absolutely never told us there was a deadline for submitting revised offers. Instead, we found out the hard way that they'd set an arbitrary deadline; when it passed, they just walked away. They've set a lot of unrealistic deadlines with the 787. This was just one more. The discussions we had with them were like trying to build a foundation for an agreement on the shifting sands of the desert. As soon as we got close to an agreement in one area, the Company would change the subject. We never exchanged formal written proposals -- and we never got a guarantee for the second line.

Aside from being misleading, the tone of this e-mail was disappointing too. I see no value in going back and rehashing this. It serves no purpose. They got what they wanted from South Carolina. It's time to move on.

This latest Company e-mail is just another smoke-and-mirror tactic trying to confuse the situation. Boeing executives had made their decision long before they ever sat down to talk with us. They're breaking ground in Charleston in two weeks and planning deliveries for 2012, both clear signs this was their plan all along.

The simple truth is there won't be any new jobs in South Carolina if our Members here in Puget Sound can't find solutions for all the 787's problems.

We're the ones who will fix the mistakes and get the first planes ready to fly, and we're the ones who will be building 787s on two lines in Everett - the main line and the new surge line -- while they're still filling in swamp land in Charleston.

Without us, the Dreamliner is just a pipedream. Let's focus on making it a reality, and quit stewing and fretting about who said what and when."