Seattle – Boeing Co. braced Wednesday for a possible strike at its commercial airplane operations after leaders of more than 18,000 Machinists advised workers to reject a final contract offer they deemed “insulting.”
Hundreds of workers used lunch breaks Wednesday to protest the company’s offer, as Boeing provided its own take on the contract in an effort to shore up support for the offer.
Union members will vote on the three-year offer today. Under union rules, the contract will automatically be ratified unless two-thirds of covered workers approve a strike.
A tally is expected this evening. If a strike is approved, Machinists would walk off the job hours later at 1:01 a.m. MDT Friday, the day the current three-year pact expires.
“Clearly a strike would be devastating to the Boeing company and everybody associated with the Boeing company,” Alan Mulally, head of Boeing’s Seattle-based commercial airplane operations, said.
Mulally said the company would have no choice but to slowly shut down operations, potentially sending customers to competitors including European archrival Airbus SAS.
Mark Blondin, president of Seattle-based Machinists Lodge 751, said Wednesday that Boeing could avert such a potential disaster by giving workers a better offer.
Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers said the company had no plans to return to the bargaining table.
“The union asked us to put the best and final offer to them on the 30th and that’s what we did,” Bickers said Wednesday.
Boeing Machinists last went on strike in 1995, when they were out for 69 days.
Machinists leaders said the current offer falls woefully short on the union’s top issue: pensions. The company is offering Machinists – who average 49 years of age – $66 per month for every year worked, up from $60 currently.
The union also criticized Boeing’s health care and job security offers, and a proposal to eliminate retiree medical benefits for those hired after July 2006.
