[Previous entry: "Spokane is (not) safe"] [Next entry: "With apologies to Sublime"]

09/07/2005: "More layoffs in Spokane"

Boeing Spokane to lay off 200 people

SPOKANE, Wash. -- The walkout by thousands of Boeing Co. workers in the Seattle area is also causing layoffs at an airplane parts factory in Spokane.

Triumph Composite Systems Inc., laid off about 45 workers on Wednesday, and up to 200 could be out of work by week's end, said Triumph President MaryLou Thomas.


Yet only 18 months ago, we had high-fives all around:

Triumph Group Inc. (Wayne, Pa., U.S.A.), a global aerospace services company specializing in control systems and repair and overhaul, has completed the acquisition of The Boeing Co.'s Spokane fabrication operation. While the acquisition terms were not disclosed, Boeing agreed to an eight-year, single-source contract with Triumph to continue to supply components to Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Triumph says that its new business, which will now be known as Triumph Composites Systems Inc., is projected to add approximately $60 million (USD) of revenue for fiscal year 2004.

And hey, when one of the largest labor unions in the country starts laying off its own (Spokane-based) workers, and your local county government RIFs 200 doctors and nurses, you know your economy sucks.

Geez Spokane... wouldn't you rather have doctors and nurses caring for the mentally ill that an over-reaching, arrogant, dangerously omnipotent bureaucracy? Wouldn't you rather have firefighters and police than Eric Skelton's pompous ass lecturing you (and your children)?

A year ago, the "Spokane Journal of Business" printed an article that, while optimistic on the surface, contains dark currents.

An index intended to show the direction in which Spokane’s economy is headed has reached its highest point possible, providing “the strongest and most positive interpretation of the local economic trends” since the index was created, its author says.

Translation: its all downhill from here (there).

When Fairchild AFB is closed after the next round of "re-alignment" (hint: when they take the airplanes away, the Air Force has moved on), Spokane will suffer a devastating blow to its economy. One in twenty people in Spokane County is employed by Fairchild AFB, and one in every thirteen dollars of Spokane's failing economy is due to the presence of Fairchild AFB.