Leeham News and Analysis
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Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 23. Development risks. September 6, 2024
- If a strike occurs, here’s what Boeing can do September 5, 2024
- China banks on C919, but numbers say it still needs Boeing September 2, 2024
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 22. High Turbine technologies. August 30, 2024
- The A330 for medium haul or twice the frequency with A321XLR? Part 1 August 29, 2024
Transition from McNerney to Muilenburg complete
Dennis Muilenburg, Chairman and CEO of The Boeing Co. Boeing photo.
Feb. 22, 2016, (c) Leeham Co.: The transition from the controversial and divisive Jim McNerney to the leadership of Dennis Muilenburg at The Boeing Co. is now complete.
Boeing announced today that McNerney stepped down as chairman and also stepped off the Board of Directors. Muilenburg, who succeeded McNerney as CEO last summer, now also assumes the chairman’s title.
It’s a welcome change.
Pontifications: Tax breaks in Washington State
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 22, 2016, © Leeham Co.: A group of Democratic legislators in Washington State will introduce five bills aimed at repealing some tax breaks and also taking yet another run at holding Boeing’s feet to the fire by tying jobs and tax breaks. The latest effort died in committee this year. This is the second year in a row by Boeing’s two key Washington unions, SPEEA (engineers) and the IAM 751 (touch labor) to get a bill out of committee to tie jobs to tax breaks. Boeing opposes the effort.
Most of the bills relate to non-aerospace industries. Two, however do:
Muilenburg’s blessing on process cleared way for SPEEA contract
Dennis Muilenburg, CEO, The Boeing Co.
Jan. 14, 2016: (c) Leeham Co. Blessing a new process in contract negotiations made an agreement possible between Boeing and its engineers’ union, SPEEA, its executive director told LNC in an interview after the surprise deal was announced yesterday.
“This process would not have happened if Muilenburg hadn’t blessed it,” said Ray Goforth, executive director of SPEEA. “This process would not have happened without Muilenburg.”
Pontifications: Boeing to focus on “long-term liabilities” in 2016’s SPEEA contract negotiations
By Scott Hamilton
Nov. 16, 2015, © Leeham Co. Boeing will target “long term liabilities” in its contract negotiations with SPEEA, the engineers union, its president quoted CEO Dennis Muilenburg as telling him in September.
Ryan Rule, president of the local SPEEA union, met for an hour with Muilenburg when he was here for a visit by China’s president Xi Jinping. Rule termed the meeting cordial. He told Leeham News last week that Muilenburg wasn’t specific about the “asks” Boeing will seek in contract negotiations next year, citing only “long term liabilities,” which Rule took to mean health care and pension benefits.
Boeing unions gird for new jobs-for-tax breaks push
Nov. 11, 2015, © Leeham Co. Boeing’s two leading unions, the IAM District 751 and SPEEA, are girding for a second try in the Washington State Legislature to retroactivity tie job retention to $8.7bn in tax breaks given by the state in 2013 in exchange for the 777X final assembly line and the airplane’s wing production factory being located in Everett (WA).
IAM 751 is Boeing’s “touch labor” union that assembles all the 7 Series airplanes in Washington State. The District also represents some Boeing employees outside Washington. SPEEA is the engineers union that represents all in-state engineers 
and technicians under contract to Boeing.
The 787 assembly site in Charleston (SC) is not represented at this time by any union.
Leaders of 751 and SPEEA Monday said they will renew their efforts to tie jobs-for-tax breaks when the next session of the state Legislature convenes in January. Efforts in last January’s session came up short, largely overshadowed by the bi-annual budget session that required special sessions extending into the summer recess because no agreements could be reached.
Muilenburg’s opportunity with Boeing unions
Dennis Muilenburg, president and CEO of The Boeing Co. Seattle Times photo via Google images.
Sept. 23, 2015, © Leeham Co. The plan to open a 737 Completion Center in China is an opportunity for Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA). It’s also an opportunity for Dennis Muilenburg, who was named chief executive officer of The Boeing Co. only last June.
Ray Conner, CEO of BCA, wrote employees in Washington State, where the 747 is assembled, that no jobs will be lost to the Completion Center.
Leadership and members of Boeing’s touch labor under, IAM 751, are understandably skeptical. As noted in yesterday’s post on this, 751 leadership expressed its concern even before Chinese President Xi landed at Paine Field in Everett, where Boeing’s wide-bodies are produced.
Pontifications: Steady as she goes at Boeing–for now
By Scott Hamilton
July 27, 2015, © Leeham Co. Dennis Muilenburg, who became the chief executive officer at The Boeing Co. the Tuesday after the Paris Air Show ended (and at which Jim McNerney was front-and-center in his role as CEO), was on the company earnings call for the first time in this role last Wednesday.
If anyone was expecting, or hoping for, dramatic announcements or policy changes, they were disappointed.
With this Muilenburg’s first earning call, it was McNerney’s last. Predictably, it was a love fest between the out-going and the incoming. Muilenburg and McNerney swooned over how well they worked together and praised each other’s work, accomplishments and vision. The discussion wouldn’t be any other way, absent a scandal of some kind (remember Phil Condit resigning over the air force tanker lease deal, Harry Stonecipher over zippergate). Despite the buzz on Wall Street and elsewhere of the relationship strains between the two men, those days really don’t matter now. What does matter is what comes next under Muilenburg.
Muilenburg becomes Boeing CEO, McNerney non-executive chairman and leaves a mixed legacy
June 23, 2015, c. Leeham Co: Dennis Muilenburg has been named chief executive officer of The Boeing Co., elevating him from president and chief operating officer, the company announced today. Jim McNerney, chairman and chief executive officer of The Boeing Co. since 2005, was named chairman of the board. He will leave the company next February.
McNerney leaves a legacy of bitter fights with Boeing’s biggest labor unions, a runaway cost overrun on the 787 and 747-8, sour relations with the supply chain and settling to be second fiddle in the single-aisle sector to Airbus.
He also leaves a legacy of attacking costs that had to be cut, increasing production rates to record levels and restoring Boeing’s stock price from a low of 2009 during the depths of the 787 program difficulties to more than $150.
Last January we posted a think piece about the challenges facing Muilenburg on the assumption he would become CEO.
IAM vote delay at Boeing SC shows weakness
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Introduction
April 19, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The withdrawal by the International Association of Machinists of the planned April 22 unionization vote at the Boeing 787 plant in Charleston (SC) appears to answer a question that was lingering ever since the January 2014 IAM 751 vote at Boeing’s Puget Sound operations:
Was there a quid-pro-quo between IAM International headquarters and Boeing for Boeing to stand by and allow unionization of BSC is exchange for the International to “sell out” for a Boeing contract package at Puget Sound?
It seems the answer is “no.”
The vote withdrawal also seems to answer another question: Has the IAM become increasingly impotent?
The answer to this seems to be “yes.”
Summary
- Obviously the IAM didn’t have enough votes to pass unionization.
- Vote delay shows weakness and continued SC predilection against unions.
- McNerney’s legacy includes largely busting the IAM.
Muilenburg’s challenges as Boeing CEO
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Introduction
Jan. 27, 2015: Dennis Muilenburg has been the No. 2 at The Boeing Co. for a little more than a year. He was named vice chairman, president and COO in December 2013.
Jim McNerney
His boss, Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney, turned 65 last August. Sixty-five is the mandatory retirement age, but this has been waived before and McNerney is widely understood to want to stick around through Boeing’s 100th Anniversary in 2016.
The industry is buzzing with reports that McNerney might move up soon to
Dennis Muilenburg
non-executive chairman, with Muilenburg assuming the CEO title.
If and when Muilenburg becomes CEO, he faces a laundry list of challenges.
Summary
- Strong competition from Airbus that is getting stronger;
- Continued cost cutting;
- Learning the Commercial Airplanes business;
- Declining defense business and revenues, putting pressure on profits and cash flow;
- Flight testing and development of the KC-46A;
- Development of the 737 MAX and 777X and proving that delivering new airplane programs on time and on budget can be achieved again;
- Selling enough 777 Classics to maintain production rates to the 2020 EIS of the 777X;
- Dealing with labor unrest with its Seattle area unions and a new attempt to organize the Charleston 787 plant; and
- Deciding whether to take that “moonshot” and launch new airplanes earlier than the 2030 EIS McNerney set as policy.