Vol. 72/No. 44      November 10, 2008

Some 27,000 Machinists struck Boeing September 6 over wages, benefits, and outsourcing of work to nonunion companies.

The company and union officials agreed to a four-year contract instead of the usual three years. According to the Seattle Times, “The union agreed to let vendors deliver parts to receiving areas inside the factory, but won a commitment that only Machinists will take it from there.” USA Today says the contract includes “procedures for the union to bid for work before it is outsourced” and that 2,000 workers whose jobs could be eliminated by outsourcing would not be laid-off during the contract.

Boeing withdrew its demand to make workers pay more for health insurance. The tentative accord accepts Boeing’s earlier offer of an 11 percent wage increase over three years, with an additional 4 percent in the fourth.

Union members will vote on the settlement by November 1.

Boeing admitted that its third-quarter profits dropped 38 percent during the strike. It used the world economic crisis as an argument to pressure the union for concessions.

Company officials and the daily press “want to make you believe that we are responsible for the economic crisis because we’re on strike,” said striker Frank King on the picket line October 26. “But this crisis is really because of corporations’ greed for profit.”

The company has insisted it has the right to maintain control of production. Boeing wants to be able to decide when and how to outsource work. “The issues at the root of this strike are so critical to our ability to run the company and be competitive that there are lines that we cannot cross,” said Scott Carson, president of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division.

Since the mid-1990s, Boeing has cut its jet production time by as much as 60 percent. At the same time it has reduced the workforce by some 40 percent.

Today’s Boeing workforce includes a number of younger workers at the lower end of the pay scale. About 10 percent of the IAM membership in Boeing’s main Seattle manufacturing hub are now under 30.

According to press reports, about a quarter of the 637,000 U.S. aerospace workers would be eligible for retirement this year.

This could be seen on the picket lines as younger workers picketed alongside those with many years at the plant.

“Takeaways in medical are the most important issue for me,” said Elizabeth Troy, while picketing at the Seattle plant. Troy, 31, was hired in June 2007 and works at the Everett plant. “My daughter’s asthma drug is not available in generic form so Boeing won’t pay for it under their plan.”

Dean Peoples, a member of IAM District 751 who has been strike at Boeing’s Everett plant, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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