Sep 23 (Askume) – Boeing Co (BAN) on Monday announced the repeal of thousands of striking workers
The company has offered to restore performance bonuses and increase retirement benefits, and employees have until Friday to approve the offer, which if they accept the offer would increase the bonus by one percent, according to a letter from the company to officials of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Time by $6,000.
Boeing is facing growing pressure to end the strike, which could cost the company billions of dollars in losses, worsen its already troubled financial position and risk a credit rating downgrade.
But IAM District 751 said it will not hold a new vote on the proposal, which is expected to be approved Friday, and has not yet entered into negotiations with the union.
“We don’t have the capacity to have 33,000 people vote in a couple of days. The important things are being overlooked,” said John Holden, president of IAM District 751 and the lead negotiator on the Boeing contract.
He said the union plans to conduct a survey Monday night to get members’ thoughts on Boeing’s latest proposal.
“We have no obligation to vote on their proposal,” Holden told Askume in an interview. “We may do so in the future. But we hope we can have some discussions so we can really meet the needs of our members.”
He said Boeing’s proposal does not fully address priorities related to retirement, salaries and other issues.
Boeing said in a statement that its latest proposal makes significant improvements and addresses feedback from unions and employees following last week’s failure to reach a consensus in federal mediation.
“We first placed the proposal with the union and then shared the details with employees in a transparent manner,” the company said.
On September 13, more than 32,000 Boeing workers in the Portland and Seattle areas went on strike, the union’s first strike since 2008. Workers rejected the company’s previous offer and demanded a 40% pay raise and the reinstatement of performance bonuses.
The union represents workers who build Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max and other jets.
Stephanie Pope, the head of Boeing’s commercial airplane business, told workers before the strike that the company was not hiding anything and that what it had offered at the time was the best deal it could offer them.
“Workers know Boeing executives can do a better job, which shows workers were right from the start,” IAM President Brian Bryant said in a statement.
The strike is the latest incident in a tumultuous year for the company, which began in January when a door panel on a new 737 Max jet came apart in the air.
An earlier tentative deal between Boeing and the union offered a 25% pay increase over four years and a promise that if any new planes launched during the four-year deal would be built in the Seattle area, but this month it changed to say more than 90 percent of the planes would be produced in the Seattle area.
Boeing hires to cut costs during strikeBoeing has halted production and furloughed thousands of US workers. Boeing plans to give workers one week off every four weeks during the strike.
The extension of the furlough is a sign that new Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg is preparing Boeing for a long strike that may not be easy to resolve given the anger among rank-and-file workers.
North American unions took advantage of the tight labor market to get a number of contracts on the bargaining table that will give big pay raises to mainline pilots, autoworkers and others by 2023.
The IAM said 5,000 members in Wichita, Kansas, went on strike Monday against Textron, the maker of Cessna business jets.
