Portside

With their contract expiring at midnight on Thursday, the Machinists union at the aircraft giant Boeing announced a tentative contract agreement September 8. It was a shock to many union members.

“Insulting,” “Joke of a contract,” and “Hard no” were some of the more polite reactions registered on X in response to the proposal, which would raise wages 25 percent over the four-year life of the deal, but eliminate an annual bonus of 3 to 6 percent of wages. 

The 32,000 members of Machinists (IAM) District 751 in Washington and District W24 in Gresham, Oregon, will vote in person September 12 on the deal. A walkout requires a majority vote to reject the agreement plus two-thirds support for a strike.

Workers think a strike is likely. “Every mechanic I’ve heard from, they are beyond pissed at what they view as a betrayal from the union,” said Ky Carlson, an assembler at the giant facility in Everett, Washington. Reacting to the 11 percent raise promised at signing, she said, “Not having gotten a raise except for cost-of-living adjustments for 10-plus years and then just to get 11 percent doesn’t make up for that.”

The last full contract was negotiated in 2008, with the help of a 58-day strike, but then extended twice. 

UNDERWHELMED

Union members have been regularly marching and blowing air horns on their breaks at the facilities in Everett and Renton, near Seattle. After the union announced the tentative agreement on Sunday, the marches got bigger. Hundreds of workers marched in front of the Everett facility on their Sunday lunch break chanting “Strike!”

The union’s post on Facebook about the proposed contract racked up so many negative reactions (about 800) and comments urging a strike (about 1,000) that they took it down. On X, they turned off comments, but not before someone wrote, “See you on the picket line, brothers and sisters.”

After all that, IAM 751 President Jon Holden told the Seattle Times he thinks the deal will be voted down and the union will strike. Holden still recommended a yes vote, “the first time the union has done so in 30 years,” the Times reported.

Hopes were high going into negotiations, with demands for a restored defined-benefit pension, a 40 percent raise, less forced overtime, and a guarantee that Boeing will build its next plane in the Puget Sound area.

The pay proposal in the deal was particularly galling. It provides for a general wage increase of 11 percent in the first year, then 4, 4, and 6 percent in subsequent years. But the union’s contract highlights document failed to mention that an annual bonus, which generally accounted for a 3 to 4 percent of earnings, would be completely eliminated. Workers in lower classifications start at between $19 and $23 an hour.

“Boeing’s actions speak louder than their words. And their actions indicate they don’t care enough about our financial needs,” said Jon Voss, a shop steward in the wings building in Renton.

OVERTIME ABUSE

Workers had hoped to see stronger curbs to mandatory overtime abuse. The current limit allows for 112 hours of forced overtime in a quarter, and up to 19 straight days of work. It was adjusted down from 128 in 2018.

Voss said that working 19 days straight is not uncommon in his shop and has resulted in physical collapse and mental breakdowns among co-workers. They install electrical and hydraulic systems in the wings of Boeing’s best-selling plane, the 737.

The new agreement would leave the 112-hour limit unchanged, but ban forced work two weekends in a row, and limit overtime to two hours on weekdays. Workers said the two-hour limit was already the practice in some areas, though the limits don’t apply during periods when a plane is being moved. Workers can voluntarily work up to 160 hours of overtime in a quarter and up to three weekends in a row.

NEXT PLANE

The union also wanted to stop the company from returning to its habit of jobs blackmail. In 2013 Boeing extracted a disastrous contract reopener from the union by threatening to move production of a new wide-bodied jet out of state.

Workers rejected that contract, which ended the defined-benefit pension plan, by 67 percent. Then a similar contract was pushed on them during winter break, when many workers were out of town. It squeaked by with 51 percent of the vote, with low turnout. The vote meant the contract was extended for another eight years, with wages stagnant.

In the new proposed contract, Boeing agrees to locate production of the next single-aisle passenger jet in the Puget Sound area, if that falls within the four years of the contract. But workers said it’s unlikely the company will start production so soon, and that this starts a bad trend of having to give up other demands just to preserve work. Union negotiators argue that having this promise in the contract gives workers an opportunity to strike on this issue if the company tries to walk it back in future contracts.

After the bitter experience of 2013, union members changed the IAM’s constitution to prevent reopeners without an express vote of the membership.

A HILL TO DIE ON

Workers want their defined-benefit pension back. “That is the hill that many of us are ready to die on,” said Voss before the agreement was announced.

The new contract does not resurrect it. But it does creates a new contribution to the national union’s existing Machinists Retirement Savings Plan of $2 per hour. The money goes into a 401(k), continuing to place the investment risk on the worker. (A defined-benefit plan guarantees a set monthly payout for life.)

The MRSP would accrue in addition to the already-existing 401(k) that replaced the pension. Initially employer contributions were 10 percent of pay, but over the years, new tiers were created for newer hires, leading downward to 4 percent. The new contract has a company contribution of 4 percent of pay, plus a match of 75 percent of employee contributions up to 8 percent of pay.

GAMING THE MILESTONES

Boeing is late on many orders; a strike would halt production and create immediate cash-flow issues.

The Seattle Times reported that in preparation for the strike, the company is pushing 777-9X freight planes through production with parts missing and installations half-done. 

This is because Boeing gets partial payments for the plane from customers as the aircraft reaches certain milestones in the production process. 

But workers told Labor Notes that this was already a regular practice. “It’s become ‘we don’t care what it takes to hit that milestone, we’re going to hit that milestone even if it means sending the plane outside with open doors and no engine,’” said one Everett worker.

This haphazard workflow means workers have to chase after planes and do installations out of order and out of their work areas, without the proper equipment and safety procedures. 

Management compulsion to hit milestones doesn’t slack when there are missing or damaged parts. “Because management puts pressure, especially on new hires, people end up taking a part off one plane and then moving it over to the other plane, to hit the milestone,” said the Everett worker. Often they don’t document the removal, a violation of Federal Aviation Administration rules.

Lack of proper documentation led to the infamous door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX that took off from Portland in January. The door plug was never properly bolted in place because of improper record-keeping, according to an National Transportation Safety Board investigation.

STRIKE PREPARATION

The union has been preparing for a strike for five years. Leaders have encouraged workers to put aside $50 per paycheck in a credit union account for when they strike. And in July, a 25,000-person rally in the Mariners stadium voted 99.9 percent to sanction a strike. 

While union higher-ups have been urging stewards to take a “vote yes” message to the membership, it hasn’t gone well. “No steward that I know was going to do that,” said Carlson. “Even my steward, when I went into work, he was so upset. He said ‘No, we need to strike. This offer is B.S.’”

The union at first recommended the contract in glowing terms, saying it was “the best contract we’ve negotiated in our history.”

But in response to the overwhelmingly negative reaction, IAM President Holden sent members a somewhat chastened update on September 9: “We have achieved everything we could in bargaining, short of a strike. We recommended acceptance because we can’t guarantee we can achieve more in a strike. But that is your decision to make and is a decision that we will protect and support, no matter what.”

“We need the strike,” said Carlson. “We need to make our voices heard.”

This article was edited to reflect union negotiators’ views on keeping work in Puget Sound.

Jenny Brown is an assistant editor at Labor Notes.