A week ago, Boeing executives believed they'd done enough to secure the pay deal with around 33,000 workers in Washington state, the heart of the company's global manufacturing operations, according to two people directly involved in the talks that have played out at Seattle's upscale Westin hotel.
The company's initial pay increase offer had been about 12%, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential and unreported details about the horse-trading, though that number gradually crept up during the weeks of negotiations.
But in an 11th-hour concession on Saturday, Sept.
7 to clinch the support of union leader Jon Holden and seal what they expected to be a swift resolution to the dispute, Boeing executives hiked the offer significantly to 25% and pledged to build the company's next commercial jet in the state, the people added.
"Much of it came together in the last four or five hours," Holden told Reuters after the tentative agreement was announced on Sept. 8, adding that he and Boeing management had worked until "the wee hours".
Boeing and the union hailed the deal as "historic" because of the record headline wage hike for the company and the first-of-its-kind plane commitment.
It was a spectacular failure.
Three days later, 94% of members of Holden's International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) rejected the offer and 96% voted to strike.
.Here are the top political news stories for today.
Unions don't police their own. The worst employee gets the most union steward time. Non-union plants are just more productive.
We have to ask ourselves the question, how much do we really need Boeing?
The Chinese have entered the passenger jet market. I am sure that Boeing will count on tariffs to keep those jets out of the country like the ones currently placed on Chinese EV's but we are at the end of the era where the whole world wanted anything labeled "Made in USA".
Boeing isn't going anywhere and the Chinese aircraft is at least two decades away from actually being able to receive non-Chinese regulatory approval. There is no originality to the design and it's just meant to get their foot in the door hence why no meaningful orders outside of China.
You want to fly a Chinese aircraft? Go right ahead. Make sure you have a Russian plane to back you up when the Chinese planes go belly up.
@LobbyLynxWorking Family2yrs2Y
Boeing has treated its employees like widgets for years while treating its executives like mini-gods. Boeing is the laughingstock of the aerospace business and everyone who gets on one now is worried about it falling apart in the sky or falling out of the sky.
There is not a CEO in the country worth $33 million dollars.
It's about time to put the building of planes back into the hands of engineers and the labor force. Not into bean counters and top level managers, who are only worried about how their stock options are doing.
Loading the political themes of users that engaged with this discussion
Loading data...
Join in on more popular conversations.
