The Seattle Times has compared how Boeing’s latest offer to the Machinists union to the one workers rejected August 28.
The union made gains on outsourcing, health care and pension. Missing from the latest offer is a company incentive pay plan.
The chart compares general wages, wages for recent and new hires, pensions, bonuses, incentive pay plans, medical plans and outsourcing language.
If you’re planning on dressing as a chef this Halloween, good luck finding a toque. You know, the tall, funny white hat that’s been a part of the official chef’s uniform dating back to the 16th Century.
At least, it used to be part of the uniform. While searching for a couple of toques to decorate pumpkins for Trick-or-Treat Street, we discovered most chefs are opting not to wear toques anymore.
Ty Issa at Larkspur checked with his staff and called back to say sorry, everyone is wearing ball caps these days instead. He recommended calling the Wichita Country Club since those chefs tend to still wear toques. Not so, reported club event coordinator Darian Tjaden. A quick check with her chefs revealed that they, too, are wearing ball caps. But she called over to the Airport Hilton for us, and a chef there found a couple of paper toques.
After struggling to get the toques to stay on the pumpkins’ heads (not to mention our own when we tried in fun), I must say I think the ball caps seem to make a lot more sense.
One question, though. Toques used to denote who outranked whom in the kitchen depending on their height. What ranks now? A Phillies cap over a Rays?
Looks like Wall Street thinks the Machinists at Boeing are going to go back to work.
It’s been a good day-plus on the New York Stock Exchange for shares of Boeing. After gaining $6.55 to close at $48.91 Tuesday, Boeing is trading higher again today.
It’s still well below Boeing’s 52-week high of $98.71 but should be good news for a company that hasn’t had a lot lately.
We’ve said a lot, in print and on this blog, about Wichita developers’ penchant for fiscal conservatism. We didn’t overbuild or speculate in the housing market, and that’s helping prop up the local economy.
But we certainly overbuilt commercial space — the dreaded vacant strip centers that popped up like toadstools in a damp yard all across town, location be darned, because real estate was everywhere. So much Tuscany that I’m seeing it in my sleep.
Which brings me to today’s issue: Wichita commercial development has slowed in the face of a national economic slowdown and tighter credit.
So much so that there’s little or no movement, even in projects that seem to have great potential and great location, like Brad Saville’s Holland Place at Kellogg and Tyler and the nearby growth around the QuikTrip at Kellogg and Maize.
Tell me what you think. Is now the time to build, as businesses look for bargain leases? Or is it time to pull back and wait out the economic downturn? Is Wichita done growing commercially, for the time being?