Print edition: 
The U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed an arbitrator's decision that said former Boeing workers in Oklahoma are entitled to early retirement benefits.
About 1,200 employees worked at the plants in Tulsa and McAlester, Okla., which were sold to Onex Corp. in 2005, with the plant in Wichita, and became Spirit AeroSystems.
Hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers had a labor agreement that stated they could retire at age 55 with a pension and lifetime health insurance paid by Boeing if they were laid off at age 50 or older and had 10 years of service with the company.
Boeing, however, argued that the obligation ended when it sold the plants, saying the workers were terminated "as a result of divestiture." It treated the workers who were not hired by Spirit as having resigned.
The ruling might help a similar case in Wichita, said Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace Midwest director Bob Brewer.
"We don't know to what extent yet," Brewer said.
The two cases "almost mirror" each other, Brewer said, although the Wichita case is going through the court system, not arbitration.
SPEEA filed a lawsuit in 2005, which the Machinists union joined.
"It's absolutely a positive sign," Brewer said. "We definitely know people were wronged during the divestiture, and that's why we have the lawsuit in place."
The affirmation by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit takes Boeing to task.
"One imagines that Boeing's concern in making these desperate arguments is with having to pay lifetime health benefits to early retirees," the finding said.
It also noted how the commitment in the UAW's agreements in contracts at Detroit automakers helped drive them to the brink of bankruptcy.
"But Boeing is stuck with the commitments that it negotiated with the union unless it can renegotiate them," it said. "It was not required to agree to provide lifetime benefits to workers represented by the UAW but it agreed to do so and must live with its decision."
