By Emil McLeod
After being on strike for more than seven weeks, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) have accepted the latest contract offer from Boeing and have agreed to send the rank-and-file back to work as early as November 6, one day after its acceptance. The contract was approved November 5 by 59% of union members who voted, and was the fourth one proposed since negotiations began in September. It includes a pay raise of 38% over the next four years, just shy of the 40% pay raise that was demanded by the IAM. The new contract, however, does not restore pensions for workers, a demand that was present since the beginning of the strike in September. Workers at Boeing have not had a pension since 2014, with the company favoring defined contribution plans, such as the 401k. The approved contract also preserves the company’s ability to override the “improved” overtime rules at their whim.
The union bureaucracy of IAM has endorsed this latest contract as the best deal they could get, threatening the rank-and-file that any further offers would be worse. The aerospace and military monopoly had been hit hard by the strike, hemorrhaging over $6 billion this quarter alone. In an interview with monopoly media, a striking worker, noting that Boeing was on the ropes during the strike, stated that “We were threatened by a company that was crippled, dying, bleeding on the ground, and us as one of the biggest unions in the country couldn’t even extract two-thirds of our demands from them. This is humiliating.” Note, the workers fought hard on only $250 of strike pay per week for over a month.
The strike hit in the midst of the electoral farce, with monopoly media claiming it would hurt the Democrats in the elections—in particular by the shutdown at Boeing facilities across the Northwest harming the economy. In reality, Boeing and its affiliates like Spirit Aerospace were already in dire straits, reeling from the capitalist economic crisis. The Biden administration sent Labor Secretary Julie Su to pressure for a quick resolution to the strike, as she had accomplished for the short-lived longshoreman’s strike a month prior.
Before the strike, Boeing was facing public backlash for safety violations and falling stock prices in the midst of the ongoing capitalist crisis of overproduction. Boeing has stated that it plans to speed up production of its 737 Max airliner, its best selling aircraft, along with their 777 and 767 cargo plane in a frenzied effort to meet demand and recoup massive profit losses, while maintaining its plans to lay off thousands of workers despite the strike ending. The striking workers are employed on Boeing’s commercial side. Its military wing recently approved the sale of F15 fighter jets to Israel in the midst of the U.S.-Zionist genocidal wars for $5.2 billion.
image: Screenshot from IAM751 social media of workers preparing to hit the picket line in late September
