Strike May Spoil Yule For Retailers Puget Sound Merchants Edgy As Holiday Season Kicks Off

Striking Boeing employees may have to pinch pennies this Christmas, an unsettling prospect for Puget Sound retailers hoping for brisk sales during this holiday shopping season.

“The feeling is: When the strike ends, we will feel a lot more secure,” said Lynn Castle, marketing director at the SeaTac Mall.

“That seems to be weighing most heavily on our minds. Federal Way and the south King County community have a lot of Boeing workers.”

In the Puget Sound area, more than 23,000 airplane-production employees have been on strike since Oct. 6 over health-care coverage, subcontracting and wages.

Workers also are striking in Spokane, Portland, and Wichita, Kan. But The Boeing Co. employs a much smaller percentage of the work force in those cities. Nearly 8 percent of King County’s work force is on the Boeing payroll.

When the striking International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers rejected the latest contract offer this week, “what you heard … was every retailer gasping when the announcement came out,” said Dick Outcalt of Outcalt & Johnson Retail Strategists.

Castle said plenty of people have come through SeaTac Mall since the strike began, but are spending less.

“We have little to blame that on other than the Boeing strike,” Castle said.

The strike will be hardest on retailers in south King County, Kent, Tukwila and Everett, said retail analyst J’Amy Owens, president of The Retail Group in Seattle.

Sales could drop as much as 3 percent in some of those areas, Owens said.

The strike comes at a particularly inopportune time for retailers. Under the best of circumstances, this was not expected to be a banner retail season.

Illustrating those concerns, the nation’s retailers launched major promotions this holiday season, trying to spur some buying interest out of wary consumers. Prices were cut by up to 50 percent on everything from clothes to computers.

“I saw a lot of things I needed and figured this was the best time to do it,” said Luester Roberson of Columbia, S.C., who hit a Wal-Mart early Friday to get the extra discounts between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m.

In Portland, most shopper surveyed said they’ll be spending less this year and trying to get by on cash rather than credit cards.

“I’m doing very little Christmas shopping this year,” said Barbara Comte of Gig Harbor, Wash. “I’m more cautious.”