At 12:01 a.m. Friday, 33,000 Boeing workers in the Seattle and Portland areas went on strike with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
It was the first time since 2008 that workers at Boeing, one of the world’s two main suppliers of commercial aircraft, walked off the job. The strike will not affect commercial air travel, but work stoppages, which will About 20 percent of Boeing’s workforceAs the company may incur costs About $1 billion per week And probably will Drive the company’s already-flagging stock price Further down the line this could also have implications for the US economy as a whole; Boeing is one of the largest manufacturers in the United States, and about 10,000 of its suppliers in all 50 states could be affected if the work stoppage extends.
Boeing and IAM were Negotiating a new contract for the weekAnd Sunday appeared to reach an agreement that would give workers a 25 percent wage increase over the next four years and new benefits. IAM leaders recommended their members take the deal, but 96 percent voted to reject it, setting the stage for Friday’s strike when the old deal expires.
Union members argued that the increase was not enough skyscraper Cost of living. They are striking for a 40 percent wage hike as well as more input on product protection And Return to the pension system they gave up in a 2014 deal.
IAM workers are also demanding that future Boeing airplanes be built in unionized shops in the Pacific Northwest rather than in a non-unionized factory in South Carolina. Boeing workers demand a say on the future of their industry part of a trend; United Auto Workers members, during their strike last summer, also demanded input on the union’s involvement in making batteries for electric vehicles.
off work Affects location flora throughout the Pacific Northwest: Everett and Renton, Washington, where Boeing aircraft are assembled; Portland, Oregon, where the parts are manufactured; and Edwards Air Force Base in Moses Lake, Washington, California, where aircraft are stored and repaired.
Boeing workers may have real benefits
As the strike begins, Boeing workers are likely to receive more concessions from the company. In particular, frustration with Boeing’s key customers – such as major airlines such as Southwest, Alaska and American – could provide IAM with significant leverage. Many commercial flights are full, and orders for the company 737 And 777 The model is already delayed. Airlines have also had to deal with major problems with Boeing planes in recent years, including a horrific incident in January where a door plug blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight, and two fatal plane crashes in 2018 and 2019. The organization is involved Its catastrophic safety failures led to multiple legal battles.
“You’re talking about all the major airlines,” Industrial Wheatondirector of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told Vox. “People don’t want to be afraid to fly in an airplane, that’s why [Boeing is] There will be all the pressure from your primary customers, which are the airlines, saying, ‘Wait a minute, don’t mess with your staff. We want them to build properly. We don’t need any problems or issues.’
There is Boeing An estimated $27 billion has been lost since 2019 Because of its cascading crisis. It is currently $60 billion Debt and wire stock price there is It is down 38 percent so far this year. Boeing’s aerospace program also suffered Recent high-profile difficulties.
As Vox’s Marin Kogan wrote in March, many of those mistakes are serious, not least because of a highly corporatized structure of the company that has focused less on hard engineering than shareholder returns in recent decades. These problems cannot be solved without investing in the industry-leading engineering for which Boeing was known – and doing so requires the ability to retain a workforce of highly trained workers.
Whether that leverage and the company’s financial woes will be enough to get workers what they want remains to be seen. But that may not take long: As of Friday, unions and companies Both have said they are ready to return to bargaining.
