By LEAH WEATHERSBY

Some workers with disabilities at a North Seattle metal fabrication plant have already

lost their jobs, and more may become unemployed due to cutbacks by The Boeing Co.

PROVAIL, a Wallingford-based nonprofit group which offers various programs for people with a disabilities, runs the metal fabrication plant at 953 N. 128th St., just off of Aurora Avenue, in the Bitter Lake neighborhood.

Three-quarters of the employees at PROVAIL's metal fabrication plant have some kind of handicap. Boeing is the plant's chief customer.

Approximately 90 percent of the factory's work is making metal parts for Boeing commercial airliners. Because its fortunes are so closely tied to Boeing's, employment at the PROVAIL plant fluctuates. A few years ago, the plant had a work force of about 70 people working up to 48 hours a week.

Before last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the work force at the PROVAIL plant had already shrunk to 50 due to the region's slumping economy. Since 9/11, another 10 workers have been laid off. In addition, the remaining employees' hours were recently reduced from 40 to about 35 per week.

Lloyd Cole, a systems analyst at the PROVAIL plant, said he is worried about his future after 14 years on the job.

"Boeing has laid-off all my counterparts," said Cole, who is wheelchair-bound. "If Boeing had gone on strike, I would have been gone."

Frank Fratus, who also uses a wheelchair, worries about his future as well. But he said he would rather be laid off than see one of the plant's able-bodied employees lose his or her job.

Even though his only other work experience was selling movie tickets, Fratus said he is eligible to receive Social Security benefits, whereas his able-bodied co-workers are not.

The PROVAIL plant is one of 15 sheltered workshops with which Boeing contracts. A sheltered workshop employs people with special mental or physical needs.

Vicki Ray, a spokeswoman for Boeing, said the company's parts suppliers feel the pinch equally when orders for new planes are scarce.

"Every (Boeing) supplier knows when production goes down there's going to be a change in what we require," Ray said. She added that Boeing is hoping for a recovery in the airline industry in 2004, which should result in an increase in new plane orders.

The PROVAIL plant has evolved into a more professional enterprise than it was

when it opened in 1952, according to PROVAIL officials. Back then, the workshop's goal was to get people with disabilities out of the house and into a more social environment.

Because they were paid per piece rather per hour, PROVAIL plant workers often didn't earn minimum wage.

But that changed gradually over the years. The PROVAIL plant has striven to be more competitive and for the last two years, Boeing has ranked it as one of its top 100 suppliers (out of thousands) in terms of the quality of products produced.

Wages are up at the PROVAIL plant as well. Today, most workers earn an average of $10 per hour, more than many could earn in other manual labor jobs, said James Jones, PROVAIL's vice president of development and communications.

Rowena Booth, 51, has worked at the PROVAIL plant for 30 years, with the exception one time several years ago when she was temporarily laid off and later rehired.

Although she must use a wheelchair to get around, she's confident she could find another job doing something if she were to be laid off again, but expressed concern that it would be for much less money. "Different people have been telling me, there's always jobs I can do because I have two good hands," Booth said.

The fabrication plant makes enough money, usually around $2.5 million per year, to support some of PROVAIL's other programs such as a clinics, assisted-living houses and other employment services.

This year, the factory's net income is down $300,000, which may cause layoffs throughout PROVAIL, not just at the plant.

While PROVAIL's fabrication plant is operated more commercially than

it was 50 years ago, Mike Hatzenbeler, chief executive officer of

PROVAIL, said it's not competitive enough to simply switch gears and woo

other clients.

Hatzenbeler said one of the challenges that the PROVAIL plant faces is that it uses old equipment (much of it originally provided by Boeing), which makes it difficult for the plant to attract work from non-Boeing clients.

Unlike for-profit companies, Hatzenbeler added, PROVAIL can't borrow large amounts

of money to renovate its factory.

Ray said Boeing encourages its suppliers to diversify their client base and passes on information to help them win new customers. In the past Boeing also has made some capital improvement grants to sheltered workshops, she noted.

One potential source of new business for the PROVAIL plant may be the U.S. Department of Defense.

Currently about 10 percent of the factory's business is making clamp loops, small metal and rubber parts for use in military planes.

Hatzenbeler said PROVAIL may get more business through a Department of Defense program which gives preference to companies that employ people with disabilities.

As a nonprofit organization, PROVAIL has another source of income: fundraising.

Jones said he hopes the organization's major fund-raising events, which include an annual auction in February and the yearly Pat Cashman Golf Tournament in June, will help get PROVAIL through the current economic downturn.

In September, PROVAIL held its 60th anniversary dinner, which featured noted national disabled rights advocate Ted Kennedy Jr. as the keynote speaker.

Jones said the dinner generated an estimated $40,000-$50,000 in donations.

David Ohlrich, PROVAIL's fabrication plant, is hopeful the economy will improve soon. After all, he has seen economic downturns and upswings before. He said worker hours at the plant were down to 32 a week when he started working there 20 years ago. Fluctuations in the economy are normal, and both PROVAIL and Boeing will recover eventually, he said.

Ohlrich notes: "That's the airplane business."