Campaigning for the C-17

Boeing has so far focused on supporting the efforts of Long Beach officials, pledging to pass on to the government any price cuts the city's campaign achieves, and providing local officials the names of suppliers spread through the country that could help lobby Congress and the Pentagon. The company decided to allow union officials representing the C-17's plant workers to outline their own lobbying strategy to employees during work hours.

Long Beach officials face an uphill battle. The Pentagon is trying to squeeze billions from its more than $400 billion annual budget. Long Beach officials acknowledge they do not know how much they will be able to save the company. Shaving $2 million from the cost of every plane, 1 percent, would be an accomplishment, but not enough to justify keeping the program, said Keith Ashdown, spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. Besides, the Air Force should base its decision on necessity, he said.

Jacki Harris, president of the United Aerospace Workers local that represents employees in the plant, put out a distress signal last month, after media reports that the Air Force would end the program. She said she called the "big guns," the union's national leaders, who came to Long Beach in late November to help map out a response, including establishing phone banks and starting letter-writing campaigns. "I am not willing to sit back and wait and see what happens," said Harris, who has worked at Boeing for 20 years.

The union's relationship with Boeing went from combative to becoming allies, Harris said, including her meeting with company officials twice a week. Earlier this month, Harris distributed a letter she co-signed with David M. Bowman, Boeing's C-17 program manager. It asks employees to write or call their members of Congress expressing concern about the possible termination.

On a separate track, Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill led a group of local officials to the Pentagon for a meeting with Wynne, the head of the Air Force, on Nov. 29. O'Neill said the tone of the hour-long meeting was positive. So city officials were disappointed when Wynne told reporters on Dec. 13 that he was comfortable with the number of planes currently under order.

At the center of Long Beach's effort is a "red team," Swayze said, a mechanism the city usually uses to attract new businesses, not keep current ones. "It's significant in the amount of attention we're devoting to this."

Nineteen cost-saving proposals are being considered, he said, including several that would make Boeing eligible for more tax breaks. Los Angeles County could offer the company a tax rebate on its equipment. The team is also considering how to reduce Boeing's water bill and the airport fees it pays.

There are still some details to be worked out, Swayze said. The city does not know, for example, how difficult it would be to take over Boeing's in-house fire department. "There might be some requirements from DOD that we don't know about," he said.

The C-17 has been saved from extinction before. In 1990, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney reduced the number of planes the Pentagon planned to buy to 120 from 210. Developing the C-17 proved so troublesome that in 1993 the Pentagon threatened to buy even fewer, 40, if things did not get better. The plane's performance eventually improved, and the Pentagon raised the number of planes in the program, first to 120 and then to 180.

In Long Beach, lobbying for the C-17 is a fight for the future. This city at the southern tip of Los Angeles County has lost 42 percent of its manufacturing base in the past 15 years. During the past five years, Boeing's Southern California workforce, which also builds some commercial planes, has fallen by 11,444 to 31,356.

The jobs at the C-17 plant pump $1.4 billion a year into the local economy, Swayze said, with the average Boeing worker earning $65,000 a year. It would be difficult to attract firms offering comparable wages. He said, "These are real good jobs."