Kansas May Have to Help with Spirit Salaries if 737 Max Stays Grounded, Governor Says

    Dec. 20, 2019
    If the 737 Max stays grounded much longer, state government may have to step in and help pay workers at Spirit AeroSystems to keep them on the assembly line, Gov. Laura Kelly said.

    By Dion Lefler

    Source The Wichita Eagle (TNS)

    If the 737 Max stays grounded much longer, state government may have to step in and help pay workers at Spirit AeroSystems to keep them on the assembly line, Gov. Laura Kelly said.

    Kelly said she talked with Spirit CEO Tom Gentile on Tuesday and he’s optimistic that production of the troubled aircraft will resume soon. Meanwhile, Spirit has continued to build 737 fuselages and now has dozens lined up on a tarmac near the company’s south Wichita factory.

    The governor said Gentile told her he’s not expecting to have to do layoffs, however, no workforce decisions have been made, Spirit officials said.

    The governor’s comment Tuesday evening was in reference to Boeing’s statement that no layoffs were planned. Kelly and her office are in daily communication with leaders at Spirit, which is in ongoing communications with Boeing to determine the impact to their business.

    “They will need to do some modifications of their work schedules and whatnot,” she said. “What I’ve told Tom was that I’ve already gotten my secretary of labor together with my secretary of commerce and they will be working with Spirit to bring all the resources that the state does have to offer to the table to help Spirit get through this.”

    Among those resources, the state may need to use its unemployment system to help pay the workers, Kelly said.

    “We’ve done this before, it’s not unusual to go in what we call a shared-work program, for instance, where they remain employees of Spirit, get a reduced paycheck, and we backfill that with unemployment benefits,” Kelly said.

    She said it’s important to keep the Spirit workers employed so the city and state don’t lose that talent pool, which will be needed when the 737 Max goes back into production.

    Boeing, the maker of the 737 and by far Spirit’s largest customer, confirmed this week the company will suspend production of the aircraft until it is deemed to be safe to fly again.

    The plane has been grounded internationally since March. That came after the second of two deadly crashes of the airliners overseas, believed to have been caused by faulty software in a system that’s supposed to prevent the plane from stalling.

    ———

    ©2019 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

    Visit The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.) at www.kansas.com

    Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.