Wichita ? Boeing Co. has turned down a proposal by workers who want to take over the company’s Wichita plant through an employee stock ownership program.

About 1,000 workers support employee takeover, a proposal offered as Chicago-based Boeing looks for a buyer of its commercial operations here and in Tulsa and McAlester, Okla. But the company said employee ownership would not be a good move.

“It would not be in the best interests of Boeing, our employees or our communities,” Douglas Bain, Boeing’s senior vice president and general counsel, said in a letter to the Air Capital Stock Ownership Plan Steering Committee, which proposed the buyout.

Still, the workers were holding out hope and were to meet today to discuss the group’s strategy.

“It’s never a done deal,” said Shane Michael, a Boeing employee and union advocate who is spearheading the employee ownership effort. “We’re going to try to keep our jobs, all of them.”

Michael said deals sometimes fell through and a new owner might want to resell the division in the future — reasons why the employee group remains active.

Boeing, in its response, said it had been searching for a buyer for some time and a key condition of the sale is a “long-term supply agreement with a stable supplier that will provide year-over-year price reductions for Boeing.”

The company said the employee stock ownership program would not offer the “required supply stability” and therefore, “we must respectfully decline your request.”

Richard Phenneger, a consultant working with Boeing employees, said the company did not understand the benefits of worker-owned companies.

When properly designed, with good management in place, they are “exceedingly successful,” he said.

Boeing employees rally Monday in front of Boeing's administration building in Wichita. The company has turned down an employee buyout proposal supported by 1,000 workers.