PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK

FROM TOO MUCH

PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK

Ray Conner set his sights on some ambitious goals when he took the CEO reins at Boeing’s commercial aviation division last year. Conner wanted the nation’s largest-ever state tax subsidy for a private corporation. Washington State’s top elected officials gave him that subsidy earlier this month: $8.7 billion over 16 years. Conner then wanted Boeing workers to give him eight years of benefit and wage rollbacks. If workers refused, he warned, Boeing would go elsewhere to build its next airliner. That threat, Connerreiterated last Monday, “isn’t a bluff.” But Boeing's workers refused to be intimidated. In a two-to-one vote Wednesday, they rejected Conner's “Walmartization of aerospace” ultimatum. The response from Conner, who took home $7.8 million in 2012: “We had hoped for a different outcome.”