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The News Tribune Business Team will keep you updated on what's happening in the South Sound and beyond. Check here for news about economic development, aerospace, shopping and much more.

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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.

C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.

John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.

Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.

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Get the most up-to-date news, insights and analysis of Tacoma, Pierce County and South Puget Sound business.
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Posted by John Gillie @ 02:41:04 pm

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney told Boeing workers today that the company must keep its costs competitive to prevent rivals from stealing its business.

``As I look ahead, I see tremendous pressure coming from old competitors and new ones,'' McNerney told employees today in a memo. ``If our collective Boeing team - - with both non-union and union-represented employees -- cannot reliably supply our customers, other competitors will do so.''

McNerney's words came as a strike of 27,000 Boeing union machinists entered its second month.

``The ongoing turmoil in the financial markets provides a timely reminder of why it would be gravely unwise for Boeing to agree to terms in any contract that would fundamentally restrict our ability to manage our business,'' McNerney wrote. ``Markets and business conditions can change quickly and dramatically. And we need to be able to react just as fast.''

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted 80 percent against Boeing's "best and final offer" for a new 3-year contract Sept. 3.

After a last-minute effort to reach a better deal, the union struck the company Sept. 6.

The union today said it only wants to share in Boeing's prosperity and to have some guarantee that the company will not outsource more jobs.

Analysts are predicting that the strike could continue for several months. Neither Boeing nor the union has made any move toward concessions, and talks have not yet resumed.