I read with much interest and amusement stories and articles about the recent Machinists rejection of the Boeing proposal that would probably have kept the 777X here in Washington had they accepted it.

One of the more reasons sited quite often by the Machinists for rejecting the Boeing proposals is the belief that they hold unique skills required to build this type of airplane. That simply is not the case. Let us remember that Southern California, Texas, Georgia and Missouri all have aircraft manufacturing plants.

And Boeing owns the old McDonald plant in Long Beach, Calif., that is operating at much less than full capacity. Boeing also has recently purchased another 200-acre property adjacent to their 787 plant in South Carolina.

I also have heard the Machinists suggest it might be possible to get Airbus, Boeing’s biggest commercial rival, to start to build some of the planes or components in the Seattle area. That sounds good on the surface, but here again they ignore the fact that Airbus already has a plant in Alabama. That being the case, why would Airbus want to make the capital investment commitment to move from there, where the labor rates are much lower, to Seattle?

Some day the Machinists will have to come to the realization that they are in an extremely competitive market and there are others willing and capable of doing the same jobs for less money. And there are state and local governments willing to provide incentives to Boeing in order to create more jobs in there area.

Robert Nielsen, Sammamish