Labor Leaders Back Transit Plan, Saying It Will Create Needed Jobs

Labor leaders Tuesday threw their weight behind a mass-transit plan for the central Puget Sound region, saying it would create thousands of well-paying jobs at a time when The Boeing Co.’s slump has thrown many skilled people out of work.

Improved transit also could encourage companies to stay or relocate to the region, and could lead to whole new industries manufacturing ground-transportation equipment, they said.

The $6.7 billion regional masstransit plan - a mix of light-rail trains, regular trains and additional buses - will be on ballots next Tuesday in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.

The labor leaders predicted building the system would create “familywage” jobs for 29,300 people, ranging from engineers and managers to machinists and pipefitters.

“Rapid transit is going to be one

of the No. 1 industries in the United States over the next decade or two,” said Larry Finneman of the International Association of Machinists, District 751.

The ballot vote on the Regional Transit Authority proposal comes after several years of substantial Boeing layoffs. Boeing’s Washington state workforce dropped by 24,706 people from the end of 1989 to the beginning of this year. The next round of Boeing layoff notices is scheduled to go out March 24. Boeing has projected about 6,500 job losses in Washington this year.

Damian King, general counsel for the Seattle Professional Engineering Employees Association, which represents Boeing engineers, agreed that “a lot of the jobs at Boeing are highly specialized.”

“But there are a lot of people who have transferable skills,” he said.

A spokesman for the group opposing the RTA plan, Families Against Congestion and Taxes, didn’t buy the new-jobs argument.

“What about the jobs that are going to be lost because of the taxes that are going to be levied on people around here” to pay for the system? asked Kris Wilder.