Supervisors Work as Machinists Picket : Boeing Apologizes for Production Delays

Boeing Co. apologized to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney for any delays stemming from the strike by 57,800 machinists, and supervisors worked to complete jetliners nearly ready for delivery.

Striking machinists, the biggest group of production workers at the world’s largest aerospace company, continued on the picket lines to press their claim for a larger share of the company’s profits.

“I would just like to see things a little more fair,” Fred Mayo, a mechanic at Boeing’s Everett plant, said Thursday night on the picket line. “The company did have a record year last year.”

Boeing, the world’s largest commercial jet builder with 65% of the Free World’s market, is in its fifth consecutive year of record jetliner orders with a backlog worth $80 billion.

Chairman Frank A. Shrontz sent Cheney a telegram Thursday apologizing for any delays in delivery because of the strike and assuring that Boeing “will do all it can to resolve this issue at the earliest possible time.”

Boeing receives billions of dollars of defense contracts a year that range from work on the B-2 Stealth bomber to guided missile systems and avionic research.

“We hope the strike will be short-lived,” the telegram said.

Company spokesman Jack Gamble said about 40 planes are in the final assembly or test stages that probably could be completed during the strike. Before the strike, Boeing was producing about 30 planes a month.

The strike went into its third day today with no new negotiations scheduled.

Boeing spokesman Harold Carr said company officials met Wednesday to discuss the strike but he knew of no further meetings Thursday.

“The company is mute,” said union spokesman Jack Daniels. “They’re doing their aristocratic aloof act.”