Machinists go to the mat with Boeing for jobs

Twenty-seven thousand members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, District 751, ended their two-month strike against Boeing on Nov. 2. The week before, members ratified a new contract which beat back many of Boeing’s concessions. Many were upset with the new contract; among the 74 percent who voted to ratify were many who were against the contract, but were running out of money.

But the strike cost Boeing plenty too: $100 million a day, according to industry analysts.

The strike was a terrific effort by the workers to save their jobs from Boeing’s outsourcing. The strikers stayed out extra weeks to save between 2,000 and 3,000 parts delivery jobs from being outsourced.

The Machinists fought for and won a 15-percent pay increase over four years. They won an increase in the basic minimum, from $12.76 per hour to $15.00. They also got an extra $1 per hour increase, after the general wage increase. Their medical plan will have no increased payments and they stopped a threat to cut the retirees’ medical plan. They gained a pension increase from $70 to $83 per year of service. And 2,000 facilities maintenance workers are protected from being laid off during this contract.

However, the new contract doesn’t give the firm guarantees that the workers were looking for, since an outside parts delivery contractor will be allowed inside the plant gates. Boeing also got a long four-year contract with the Machinists, who have always had three-year contracts. They have struck four times in two decades.

The union and company went to the mat on the issue of outsourcing of union jobs. The Machinists have seen their jobs outsourced, especially since 1999, with tens of thousands of jobs lost. Jobs have been outsourced to lower-wage companies around the world and to outfits right down the street from Boeing plants. The Machinists have pointed out that outsourcing caused a 15-month delay in production of the new 787 plane, and Boeing even agreed.

Now New Breed Logistics, a nonunion company, will be able to bring parts inside the plants, giving Boeing a loophole which may endanger Machinists’ jobs.

This heroic strike raised the issue of jobs high on the banner for labor. Tens of millions of jobs in aircraft and auto and other industries have been lost in recent decades. Wall Street financiers who dictated these layoffs have now created a global economic crisis. Workers’ organizations have been demanding that “a job is a right” and calling for a moratorium on plant closings and layoffs.

This 58-day Machinists’ strike, despite some compromises, advanced the cause of the workers’ right to a job to protect their livelihoods.