Boeing avoided a likely strike by deciding at the last minute to withdraw two major takeaway proposals that would have provoked rejection of their "last and final offer." They dropped proposals for a "flexible" workweek, which would have allowed Boeing to run its factories on Saturday and Sunday without paying overtime for those days. The company also withdrew its proposal to begin charging workers for their company-paid medical and dental insurance programs. A separate "letter of understanding," however, says that if the price of medical coverage rises above a certain number in the next year, Boeing can start charging individual workers $10 per month, $20 for a couple, and $30 for a family for medical insurance.
In the three days leading up to the negotiating deadline, workers had begun showing their anger at the company's takeaway proposals. Union members marched through the factories on their coffee breaks, chanting "Union Power!" and "No Way, 7 Day." Others began synchronized riveting, creating a noisy din throughout the factories. In Everett, 300 machinists in union T-shirts demonstratively turned their backs at a nationally televised ceremony for Boeing's roll-out of a new airliner, the 767-400ER.
John Heft, an assembler at Renton with three years at Boeing, voted for the contract because it "wasn't all that bad." But, he added, if Boeing hadn't withdrawn these takeaway proposals, "this place would have come unglued." The contract also included small wage increases of 4% for the first year, 4% for the second, and 3% for the third, in addition to cost-of-living adjustments. Starting wages, however, remain frozen at their 1992 levels, thus further widening the large wage gap between future new hires and the existing workforce.
To further induce a "Yes" vote, Boeing offered a 10 percent ratification bonus, which the company estimated would average $4,400 per worker before taxes. Basic pension benefits were raised by only $10 to $50 per year of service for future retirees, far short of the union's original demands.
David Ice, who has worked 22 years for Boeing, voted against the contract because he thought the retirement benefits were too meager. "My main concern is for those retirees… It's heartless that the company just doesn't care," he said.
Like many workers interviewed by the Militant, Jim Thoma, a Renton assembler with 13 years on the job, thought the contract was "a fair deal." "The sign-on bonus had a little influence on me, too," Thoma added. Others who voted for the contract said it was the best they could get right now.
Irene, however, who didn't want her last name used, voted against the contract because she thought workers could have done better. She also turned it down because of the many joint "union-management committees" established in the contract. The union, the Renton worker said, "shouldn't be on joint committees, like Lean Manufacturing. These committees help cut union jobs."
The company and union officials praised the agreement. William Johnson, President of IAM District 751, which represents production workers in the Puget Sound region, said, "That's the best contract in aerospace, period. By far." The union negotiating committee had recommended a yes vote.
The company campaigned for a yes vote. It ran double-page open letter ads in major newspapers in the Seattle area; Portland, Oregon; Wichita, Kansas; and Spokane, Washington in the days leading up to the vote, calling the contract "more than fair." The "open letter" from Boeing chairman Philip Condit was also reprinted by the company and distributed on the job. The company also ran ads on all the major radio shows prior to the vote. In some crew meetings supervisors campaigned for a yes vote.
Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said the most significant outcome was that Boeing "avoided a strike." The aerospace giant feared a repeat of the 69-day Machinists' strike in 1995, which shut production down and forced Boeing to shelve its takeaway plans then. Boeing is just emerging from production and financial problems, and is in a dogfight with its main competitor, Airbus. A strike, they judged, could undercut their competitive edge at this time.
While union and company officials praised the agreement, on the shop floor the day after the vote, "no one was turning cartwheels," as Heft put it.
A major issue in the negotiations was subcontracting. Under the new agreement, a joint union-management committee will review outsourcing plans, and the company will give union officials 180 days notice of plans to send work to outside companies. Boeing has final say on subcontracting decisions, however, but promised in the new contract that "no employee will be laid off as a direct result of subcontracting or offloading work." A variety of exceptions to this promise are listed in the new contract, including layoffs due to economic downturn and mergers. Some workers voted against the contract because it offered no job security. Beverly Wickham with 18 years at Boeing said, "I don't want any more money. I just want a job."
With the accord in hand, Richard Schneider, the union's chief negotiator said that the union now plans to throw its full support behind Boeing chairman Phil Condit. "We have been invited onto a great journey by Phil Condit," said Schneider, "To take this company in partnership into a new century. We have accepted that invitation." Union officials refer to Condit as "a miracle" for his role in fashioning a contract that they could recommend.
Two days after the contract was approved, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an interview with Condit. The front-page interview was titled "Condit revisits flexible workweek." In it, he continued to press for alternative workweek schedules: "I think we can work with the union to say, "OK, Let's try a couple ways; lets experiment." The new contract includes a "letter of understanding" (LOU) which allows Boeing to try out a flexible workweek on a case by case basis, if IAM officials agree to them. This interview upset quite a few workers in the plants, who had thought that Boeing would really drop the issue. IAM officials immediately issued a statement opposing any pilot program along those lines.
In the interview, Condit also tried to whip up "America First" attitudes and rally workers behind "our company" by hammering at the need to beat Airbus, Boeing's main competitor for commercial aircraft sales. "There are two competitors. It's us and them. If we don't get the orders, they do. If we fail to win orders, if we are not competitive with Airbus, the work here declines."
With the signing of the contract, Condit reiterated the company's goal of speedup: "If we don't work together and don't increase our productivity, everybody is going to suffer."
The week the contract was approved, 787 more IAM workers in the Puget Sound area were given a 60-day notice of layoff. That made a total of 11,586 IAM members who had been either laid off or given notice of layoff in the last year. Regardless of the new contract or Boeing's "promises," Boeing plans to eliminate thousands of more jobs over the next six months in its drive to increase profitability and beat competition.
Scott Breen is a member of the IAM at Boeing.
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