Vote to continue strike exposes Boeing workers' anger over lost pensions
Since going on strike last month, Boeing factory workers repeated one theme from their picket lines: They want their pensions back
Since going on strike last month, Boeing factory workers have repeated one theme from their picket lines: They want their pensions back.
Boeing froze its traditional pension plan as part of concessions that union members narrowly voted to make a decade ago in exchange for keeping production of the company's airline planes in the Seattle area.
Like other large employers, the aerospace giant argued back then that ballooning pension payments threatened Boeing's long-term financial stability. But the decision nonetheless has come back to have fiscal repercussions for the company.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced Wednesday night that 64% of its Boeing members voted to reject the company's latest contract offer and remain on strike. The offer included a 35% increase in wage rates over four years for 33,000 striking machinists but no restoration of pension benefits.
The extension of the six-week-old strike plunges Boeing — which is already deeply in debt and lost another $6.2 billion in the third quarter — into more financial danger. The walkout has stopped production of the company’s 737, 767 and 777 jetliners, cutting off a key source of cash that Boeing receives when it delivers new planes.
The company indicated Thursday, however, that bringing pensions back remained a non-starter in future negotiations. Union members were just as adamant.
“I feel sorry for the young people,” Charles Fromong, a tool-repair technician who has spent 38 years at Boeing, said at a Seattle union hall after the vote. “I've spent my life here, and I'm getting ready to go,
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