Troubled Boeing withdraws 30 percent salary increase offer to striking workers

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Louise Thomas

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Boeing has withdrawn an offer of a 30 percent salary increase to striking workers, after more than two weeks of tense negotiations.

The beleaguered aircraft manufacturer said that it had boosted its offer to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) for take-home pay and retirement benefits.

The offer would have resulted in a pay increase by almost a third over four years for 33,000 US staff, Boeing said, before adding that the union had not considered the proposals “seriously.”

“Instead, the union made non-negotiable demands far in excess of what can be accepted if we are to remain competitive as a business,” Boeing said in a prepared statement. “Given that position, further negotiations do not make sense at this point and our offer has been withdrawn.”

IAM members voted overwhelmingly to reject Boeing’s latest offer, the union said.

“Your negotiating committee attempted to address multiple priorities that could have led to an offer we could bring to a vote, but the company wasn’t willing to move in our direction,” the IAM District 751 said in a message to members.

The union complained last month that Boeing had publicized its latest offer to 33,000 striking workers without first bargaining with union negotiators.

The offer was more generous than the one that was overwhelmingly rejected when the workers went on strike September 13.

The first proposal included 25 percent raises, substantially less than the IAM’s original demand of a 40 percent increase over three years.

Boeing said average annual pay for machinists would rise from $75,608 now to $111,155 at the end of the four-year contract.

The union represents factory workers who assemble some of the company’s best-selling planes.

The strike is stretching on as Boeing deals with multiple other issues. It has shut down production of 737s, 777s and 767s. Work on 787s continues with nonunion workers in South Carolina, following a spate of lawsuits.

The legal troubles began when a door panel blew out in mid-air on one of Boeing’s 737 Max 9s, shortly after it took off from Portland, Oregon, in January. Investigations by the US safety regulator later discovered the panel appeared to be missing four key bolts.

In July, Boeing pleaded guilty to a US criminal fraud charge stemming from the crashes of two 737 Max jetliners in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people.

A month earlier, in June, former Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun appeared at a special hearing in Congress, during which he apologized directly to the families of the victims.

Shares of Boeing Co., which is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, fell nearly two percent before the opening bell Wednesday and the stock is down 41 per cent this year.