Nummer 3 af verdens grådigste i 2013 3/ Jim McNerney: Middle Class Manslaughter The U.S. manufacturing giant Boeing, analyst Harold Meyerson observed last week, has only one global rival in the large-scale passenger-plane market, the European conglomerate Airbus. Workers at these two aerospace giants turn out to make about the same compensation. But executives at Boeing make more. Question: Given these realities, what should Boeing do to compete more effectively? The answer from Boeing CEO Jim McNerney: Cut Boeing worker wages, benefits, and pensions! Earlier this fall, McNerney gave his Seattle area workers an ultimatum: Either accept a contract “extension” that would leave them paying more for health care and getting less in retirement — and force new hires to work 10 extra years at substandard wages — or Boeing would go elsewhere to manufacture its new 777x passenger jetliner. Boeing gave Washington State’s political leaders a similar ultimatum: Either fork over new subsidies and tax breaks or see your state lose jobs by the thousands. Washington lawmakers caved almost instantly. They voted Boeing the largest subsidy deal in U.S. history, over half a billion annually for the next 16 years, over double the state’s annual funding for the University of Washington. Boeing’s workers didn’t cave. They rejected the Boeing ultimatum, and McNerney, who pulled in $27.5 million in take-home last year after $23 million the year before, is now parsing subsidy offers from half a dozen other states. How does this story end? Maybe with the “Walmartization of aerospace.” “This,” as Seattle author Timothy Egan puts it, “is how the middle class dies.” - See more at: http://inequality.org/americas-greediest-2013-top-ten/#sthash.shhu4nsu.dpuf