On Friday, some 33,000 Boeing workers went on strike after voting down a tentative agreement (TA) reached on September 8 between their negotiating committee and the airplane manufacturing giant. The strike by the workers — members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), most of whom work at the company’s gigantic Everett, Washington, plant, the largest manufacturing building in the world — is now the largest active work stoppage in the United States. It’s the first strike at Boeing since 2008.
Boeing CEO Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, installed earlier this year after the company suffered yet another publicity nightmare when the cabin panel of a 737 MAX 9 came off midflight in January of this year — not to mention the highly suspicious deaths of two whistleblowers at the company — practically begged the workers not to strike, stating that the walkout puts Boeing’s “recovery in jeopardy.”
“We encourage them to negotiate in good faith — toward an agreement that gives employees the benefits they deserve and makes the company stronger,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said on Friday. Negotiations resumed on Tuesday, with a federal mediator present at the bargaining table.
Boeing machinists’ average pay has risen 15 percent over the past decade to $75,000. For workers faced with the soaring cost of housing in the Seattle area, that’s a far cry from the family-sustaining wage enjoyed by prior generations at the plant.
“Boeing is saying they are in a tough spot recovering yet their executive salaries haven’t changed,” a Boeing mechanic told the Guardian. “It is much deeper than pay and benefits. It is Boeing’s culture. We are a family here in my shop.”
Indeed, despite mounting debt, Boeing does not lack for money when it comes to executive pay: Ortberg stands to make $22 million next year, while his predecessor Dave Calhoun got a 45 percent raise in 2023; the company…
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Auteur: Alex N. Press
