Fired Workers Have Also Sued New Owners Of Former Boeing Facilities

Workers at Boeing's former facilities in Kansas and Oklahoma have sued the company, claiming age discrimination in job losses when Boeing sold the operations.

They have also named Spirit Aerosystems Inc., which was created after it's parent company Onex Corp. bought the commercial airplane operations from Boeing. Top Boeing official admit they expressed concern about the age of the work force when the facilities in Wichita, Kansas and Tulsa and McAlester, Oklahoma were for sale.

The Associated Press reports that court documents filed this week in U.S. District Court in Wichita cite depositions from Former Boeing manager and Spirit CEO Jeff Turner that indicate he and other executives considered older workers to be a more expensive work force. "An aging work force in and of itself is — is difficult, problematic for the business, for sustaining the business long-term," Turner said in his deposition.

Boeing and Spirit denied any personnel decisions were made based on age, though Boeing admits it did look at parallels between age brackets and wages. 

The suit claims that Spirit used a formula to determine who would be let go and who would be re-hired when it Onex bought the company, and that workers age 45 to 54 were considered too expensive. The court filing said the company needed "to move employees out of this age range."

FMI: www.ksd.uscourts.gov