Boeing ‘ready to return to table’ amid car strike

Boeing (nay) machinists I’m on strikeand that puts Boeing in trouble. The company’s shares fell about 4 percent in Friday’s session as it needs them to assemble its 737 Max planes, but workers balked at a contract that gave them a 25% raise..

Their union, the International Association of Machinists and Aeronautical Workers, said so 94.6% of them voted against the agreement. The workers demanded a 40% increase. Their corresponding 96% vote to subsequently strike was no surprise given that they had approved the tactic by an even greater margin in July.

The machinists are mostly represented by IAM District 751. Jon Holden, the district president, telegraphed the results of the vote in an interview with the Seattle Times earlier this week.

“People’s response is that it’s not good enough,” he said. “At this point, I think it will be voted down and our members will vote to strike.”

Before the voteNewly installed Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg he begged them to accept the deal and stay on the job. They put together the 737 Max and 777 planeswhich together represent 85% of the current company backlog of orders for commercial aircraft.

“I know the reaction to our tentative agreement with IAM has been passionate,” he told workers. “I understand and respect that passion, but please don’t sacrifice the opportunity to secure our future together because of the frustrations of the past.”

The last time IAM-represented workers at Boeing negotiated a full contract was in 2008. And then they went on strike, also over pay. They were off the job for eight weeks, which the company said cost $100 million at the time. After the latest strike, Boeing decided to move construction of its 787 Dreamliner planes from the company’s traditional base in Washington state to South Carolina.

“It could not have been a revelation to IAM employees that strike-related costs and disruptions could be taken into account when the Company decides what new investment is appropriate and where the investment should be made,” wrote Philip A. Miscimarra, former chairman of the company. The National Council for Labor Relations, in a 2011 paper on relocation for the ABA Journal of Labor and Employment Law.

But one of the major wins in the new contract was the assurance that Boeing would keep production of its next plane in Washington. Further relocation would be expensive — the planemaker spent $750 million building the new facility — and would not be a bulwark against future labor unrest. Although an IAM campaign in South Carolina failed with 74% of workers rejecting it in 2017a smaller group of workers there unionized the following year.

IAM 751 declined to comment on the vote or next steps. In a statement to Quartz, Boeing acknowledged that all it can do is resume talks and hope they come up with something more palatable.

“The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to members,” the company said. “We remain committed to restoring our relationship with our employees and the union, and we are ready to return to the table to reach a new agreement.”