Boeing, machinists agree on pact terms
Boeing Co. and machinists union leaders agreed on tentative terms for a contract that if approved by members would end the third-longest strike in the union’s 73-year history and reopen the plane maker’s closed factories.
Agreement on a four-year contract, rather than the usual three years, would provide job security for machinists “and limit the amount of work outside vendors can perform in the workplace,” the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said Monday.
A vote for the union’s 27,000 members will be scheduled within three to five days, and more details about the proposal will be released today, the union said.
“After 52 days of striking, we have gained important and substantial improvements over the company’s last, best and final offer that was rejected on Sept. 3,” said Tom Wroblewski, president of the union’s District 751 in Seattle.
The strike by the machinists in Washington state, Oregon and Kansas started Sept. 6, idling the Seattle-area manufacturing hub and trimming about $10.3 million a day from third-quarter earnings at the world’s second-largest maker of commercial planes. The two sides began the most recent negotiations Oct. 23 with a federal mediator in Washington, D.C., after a two-day round collapsed a week earlier.
The union, known as the IAM, had challenged an outsourcing provision in place since 2002 that allows suppliers to deliver parts directly to assembly lines. IAM also sought Boeing’s promise not to lay off maintenance workers if contractors doing similar tasks remained on the job. In addition, IAM wanted more options to bid for future work that Boeing intends to farm out to vendors.
The union also pushed for a bigger share of Boeing’s record profit. The plane maker’s offer for an 11% raise over three years fell short of the 13% the union proposed, while workers objected to Boeing’s insistence that they shoulder a more of their healthcare costs.
Boeing, based in Chicago, had said it needed to use contractors for some jobs to improve productivity as competition increased from new aviation companies as well as its larger commercial rival, Airbus, which plans to build plants in China. The company maintained that it also needed to make sure any contract improvements were affordable even if orders slumped.
The negotiations led to a one-day delay in starting contract talks between Boeing and its engineering union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.
Those talks, set to start today, were postponed so the plane maker could wrap up talks with the machinists, said a spokesman for the engineers.
“They have some of their key negotiators back in D.C., so we’ve granted this and hope they’ll use the time to make a fair offer to machinists and end the strike,” said Bill Dugovich, a spokesman for the 20,000-member engineering union.
The existing contract expires Dec. 1, and the engineers have similar concerns as the machinists and have threatened to walk out if their demands aren’t met.
