Yesterday Boeing settled on a contract deal with it's aerospace workers, though settled might give the wrong type of picture. Basically they blackmailed Seattle workers by threatening to move production of their new 777x if the workers weren't willing to simply abide with Boeings demands - and Boeings demands were pretty much moving profits/wealth from the workers to shareholders.
Bloomberg Businessweek wrote:
Pensions died another death. The new contract ends the age-old pension system in favor of a defined-contribution, 401(k)-style plan. By now, many Americans consider a company pension as much a workplace relic as the wardrobes on Mad Men, but unions everywhere have clung to it fiercely. The new Boeing contract is another nail in that coffin.
Bloomberg Businessweek wrote:
Boeing won—and workers lost. Boeing’s decision to play hardball comes at a time of record prosperity for the company, which is boosting its dividend by 50 percent and buying back $10 billion in shares. For 2013, the company is likely to post record net income of $5 billion or more. Boeing’s “corporate power play†is more evidence that in the economic contest between labor and employer, most employees have little power to improve their collective lot.
Hedrick Smith, author of Who Stole the American Dream is today claiming that Boeing just stole another piece.
What I find so paradoxical is that local and state governments are throwing themselves at these big companies wooing them into their jurisdictions with TIFs, reduced labor costs, etc feeding dreams of economic stability only to realize down the road that their tax dollars are not only diminished but just as much in demand.