Some 3,200 members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 went on strike Aug. 4 at three Boeing facilities in Missouri and Illinois, after voting down the company’s second inadequate contract offer in two weeks. The workers build and maintain fighter jets, including the F-15 and F/A-18 models, and will build the new F-47.
I’m prepared to strike for as “long as it takes,” Lathaniel Johnson, an assembly mechanic at Boeing in Berkeley, Missouri, told St. Louis Public Radio. The company’s offer of a 20% wage increase over four years, he said, was not enough.
The company’s second offer did take out its unpopular demand for new schedules of four consecutive 10-hour weekdays or three consecutive 12-hour Friday-to-Monday shifts. Union members made clear that wasn’t happening.
Some 30 strikers lined up along Airport Road outside the Boeing facility in Berkeley Aug. 4. “We feel entirely that it’s just completely inadequate,” Earl Schussler, 59, a longtime Boeing worker told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He explained that workers made concessions in 2014 after the company threatened to leave St. Louis. “Now look at us today.”
In March, Boeing was awarded a $20 billion contract to build the Air Force’s “next-generation” F-47. Last week Boeing reported $22.7 billion in revenue for its latest financial quarter, its largest revenue figure in six years. About 30% of Boeing’s revenue comes from its military and space division.
Dan Gillian, a vice president and general manager for Boeing, told the press the company will continue to work with “our nonstriking workforce.” According to a statement by the AFL-CIO urging support for the strike, the company has already announced plans to hire “replacement workers.”
Solidarity with the Boeing strike!