Nobody in their right mind wants to be laid off, especially now that unemployment benefits that were expanded due to the Great Recession are returning to normal.
But you might feel differently if you just got laid off from Boeing.
According to a story in the Seattle Times, a special federal program that was lined up by various unions representing aerospace workers will greatly cushion the blow of getting laid off for workers at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The special arrangement, the newspaper says, is for both union or non-union, production workers or engineers, who get laid off between April 2012 and June 2015.
It’s a sweet deal, and one that will probably make the blood boil in every unemployed American who wasn’t lucky enough to work at Boeing and has seen their unemployment run out.
The highlight of this deal for Boeing workers — and it was approved by the U.S. Department of Labor — is that “they will get unemployment pay for up to 2½ years, rather than the regular six months” if they lose their jobs. This exceeds the 99 weeks of unemployment compensation that some out of work employees received in the wake of layoffs during the Great Recession.
If that’s not enough, there’s more.
Unemployed Boeing Commercial Airplane workers will also get:
If you have ever had to navigate the rip tides surrounding unemployment compensation, you know that this special deal for unemployed Boeing airplane workers is absolutely off-the-board incredible. No unemployed workers anywhere get benefits this generous, and it makes you wonder why Boeing’s unemployed are so special, doesn’t it?
Well, here’s why, as detailed in the Seattle Times:
All these benefits flow because the Labor Department recently granted the IAM’s (International Association of Machinists union) petition for federal aid under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which is designed to assist U.S. workers who have lost their jobs as a result of overseas trade or outsourcing.
And after a parallel petition from the white-collar union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the government broadened the approval to include all Boeing Commercial Airplanes workers, even nonunion employees.
The Department of Labor explained the decision by saying the company’s job losses here can be attributed to outsourcing because Boeing has acquired aircraft parts from foreign countries, “which contributed importantly to worker group separations.”
And, if the special government-provided unemployment package wasn’t good enough, here’s more, from the Times story:
The substantial TAA benefits for the Boeing workforce are on top of extras that the unions had already negotiated with the company. Boeing agreed to pay an extra $700 in severance pay to laid-off IAM members who had been with the company less than a year.
And per the contract, any IAM member who has been with the company more than a year gets Boeing severance pay equal to a week of pay for every year of service, up to 26 weeks, plus full medical coverage for themselves and their dependents for up to six months.
The SPEEA contract provides the same severance-pay provision and up to three months of medical coverage.”
If you’re shocked and offended by this government-funded perk that goes to a select few unemployed Boeing employees, this online commentary/rant is probably for you.
And it just goes to show you just how cozy the current administration is with organized labor, as if the flood of pro-union rulings by the NLRB wasn’t enough. But it makes me wonder: why Boeing and airplane workers? What is so special about them?
My guess is that this special Boeing deal will generate a lot of attention, because it simply is over-the-top generous for a tiny group of workers that the federal government has decided to reward in an incredibly generous way. Keep that in mind the next time you have to navigate YOUR state’s unemployment compensation system.
Of course, there’s more than Boeing’s government funded unemployment package in the news this week. Here are some HR and workplace-related items you may have missed. This is TLNT’s weekly round-up of news, trends, and insights from the world of talent management. I do it so you don’t have to.
