Boeing workers approve contracts

Boeing Co. engineers and technical workers have voted to ratify new contracts, ensuring four years of labor peace at the company’s commercial airplane operations.

In votes tallied Monday after balloting by mail, 79 percent of members in the professional unit of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace approved the deal. Union spokesman Bill Dugovich said the vote was 69 percent for ratification in the technical unit.

The two agreements were reached Nov. 14 following 2 ½ weeks of negotiations. They include pay raises averaging 5 percent a year, higher pension payments and improved medical coverage with small cost increases for employees.

Union officers and negotiators had recommended approval of the two contracts, one covering about 14,200 scientists, engineers and other professionals with average salaries of $92,161, and the other for nearly 6,700 computer technicians, manual writers and other white-collar hourly workers paid an average of $68,157.

WaMu layoffs won’t reach East Side

JPMorgan Chase officials say they will not lay off branch workers in Eastern Washington or North Idaho as they cut jobs at Washington Mutual Bank.

Based in New York City, JPMorgan Chase said Monday it will lay off about 3,400 WaMu workers in King County, about 80 percent of the company’s Seattle-area work force.

Spokesman Tom Kelly said the WaMu layoffs will be mostly for jobs in headquarters and back office positions.

JPMorgan Chase acquired WaMu in September after the Seattle-based bank had been taken over by the FDIC. That followed disclosures that WaMu managers had taken on huge amounts of high-risk, high-interest home loans to buyers with shaky credit.

SPOKANE

Potlatch’s board OKs split

The Potlatch Corp. board of directors has given final approval to split into two public companies, with a spin-off of its pulp-based businesses, effective this month, the Spokane-based company announced Monday.

Potlatch will continue to operate as a real estate investment trust holding 1.7 million acres of timberland in Idaho, Arkansas, Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with four sawmills and one plywood mill.

The new Clearwater Paper Corp. would own pulp-and-paper and wood products facilities at Lewiston, plus other plants in Elwood, Ill.; Cypress Bend, Ark.; and Las Vegas.

The headquarters for the companies will remain in the Spokane area.

Potlatch employs 3,600 people.