Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has warned striking factory workers to accept its latest offer or the next deal it offers will be less generous. The company and negotiators for the International Association of Machinists reached a tentative deal based on a 38 percent wage increase and a one percent cut on employee health insurance contributions. The membership previously rejected a 35 percent wage hike. Union leaders told the Seattle Times Ortberg means business and they're imploring members to take the deal when they vote on Monday. The 33,000 workers have been off the job since Sept. 13 and the company is bleeding about $1 billion a month because deliveries have stopped.
A negotiating method when opponent gets ridiculous is to reduce offer.
Boeing was not wise to add 777X to its promise to build new airplane models in WA.
Seems union members were still pushing for restoration of defined-benefit pension, wage for new hires also a concern (only people motivated to learn the trade are attracted to the jobs, as otherwise they can earn at least as much working in retail).
Embraer may sell more airplanes, it wanted to make a larger airliner. But Brazil has gone bad in politics, the Latin American disease.
(Embraer’s senior engineers today are probably ones taught by Canadians and Americans decades ago, I knew one. He’s gone, I do not know if his students passed on the smarts of people like him.)
Looks like Boeing is on a path that the auto industry was in Detroit decades ago. Militant & greedy unions think need to understand that there is a limit to what can be paid. Putting some skin in the game with an offer to accept a profit sharing compensation plan may be good for both the salvation of Boeing and the workers.
The ongoing strike is costing Boeing billions and hurting its suppliers and workers, leading to a broader economic slowdown. The latest contract offer includes a 38% wage increase over four years and a $12,000 ratification bonus. Accepting this deal would allow everyone to return to work, stabilize incomes, and support the economic health of all involved. I recommend not biting the hand that feeds you. Take the deal!
Maybe human resources are different in the states, but for a company to come out all heavy the day before a union vote on a pay deal, seems totally weird.
It is a union vote, best thing (in most companies) is to let the union do the talking.
Having a boss make threats would have put my back up, back in the day when I had bosses.
Also he has shut doors – if the vote is no, what does he do? After losing so much pay during the strike, the strikers are probably ready to walk out anyway.
My last job was as an engineer in a union shop which built transfer cases for Chrisler AWD vehicles. The last time the union threatened to strike, the parent company shut the plant down. The UAW told all the workers that they had the choice of moving to Detroit , to somewhere in Kentucky, or find a new job. It amazes me how unions will strangle a dying company for another penny even at the risk of their jobs.
Someone said “No pension no planes”. Well, let’s see how this goes. I agree that threatening workers on the eve of a ratification vote can destroy what little good will is left.
I do not think that the Union members truly grasp the situation. They are under the delusion that Boeing has no options… They keep saying that Boeing is now run by McDonnell leadership, but they refuse to accept how that leadership really works.
I was at MD for 14 years and saw what they did to the commercial side of Douglas Aircraft Company. I also heard what they did right after the McDonnell-Douglas Merger… This is deja vu all over again.
The union members may be striking their way out of a job.
I tried to warn them, but they said that was just fear-mongering. It is not fear-mongering — IT’S FACT MONGERING!
That being said, most salaried workers (engineers, instructors, etc) would practically kill to get what Boeing is offering to the Union members!
That’s what Boeing did with the 787, courtesy of McD’s management experience. It outsourced production to Japan, Italy, Sweden, South Korea and France, along with multiple U.S.-based subcontractors. Final assembly was in non-union South Carolina.
The result? Tens of billions of dollars of cost overruns, years behind schedule, and
numerous and significant problems simply getting everything to fit together.
Yours is great business advice if you want to short the company’s stock.
So, after years of moving, re-tooling, and adapting, that entire move costs them less than 1/4 of what the strike cost them so far? Hell, move the plant to Grand Prairie Texas and save a bundle!