Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. (SPR) has agreed to pay its employees represented by its professional technical union after a tornado Saturday that caused significant to severe damage at its Wichita, Kan. campus. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE Local 2001, which represents many of the company's engineers and technical workers in Kansas, said in a message to its employees Spirit had retroactively agreed to pay standard wages "regardless of time worked" for the two weeks following the work stoppage, which began late Saturday. Spirit, which shut down operations Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, has instructed employees to remain on-call and to report if contacted by the company as the company restores its capabilities. Nearby Boeing Co.'s (BA) Wichita plant was also damaged during the storms and its SPEEA-represented employees at the company's Defense and Space facility will also be paid for missed time under its contract, the union said. Spirit is the largest single airplane structure supplier to Boeing, providing the airplane maker with significant portions of all of its commercial jetliners. Boeing is expected to complete an assessment of Spirit's damage and shutdown on its own production operations as the supplier aims to resume customer shipments by week's end. -By Jonathan Ostrower, Dow Jones Newswires, jonathan.ostrower@dowjones.com
