Boeing union backs sweetened contract offer that could end strike, sets vote for Monday

Boeing and its machinists’ union have agreed on a new negotiated offer to raise worker pay and potentially end a crippling strike that began seven weeks ago with a vote on the new proposal set for Monday.

The union urged workers to approve the contract. Getting workers back into factories is urgent for Boeing as it faces mounting losses.

“In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything that we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said Thursday. “We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.”

The new proposal includes 38% general wage increases over four years, up from a previous offer for 35%, bringing the compounding pay increases to close to 44%, the union said Thursday. It also gives workers the option of a $12,000 one-time ratification bonus or to choose a previous offer for a $7,000 ratification bonus and a $5,000 401(k) contribution.

The union said that asking its members to stay on strike longer “wouldn’t be right as we have achieved so much success.”

Boeing’s more than 32,000 machinists, mostly based in the Seattle area, walked off the job on Sept. 13 after turning down a tentative agreement. They rejected another proposal earlier this month, extending the strike.

Boeing said Thursday that at the end of the contract, machinist pay will average $119,309.

“It’s time we all come back together and focus on rebuilding the business and delivering the world’s best airplanes,” Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a note to staff on Friday. “There are a lot of people depending on us.”

He urged workers to vote “since the results of the vote will affect all of us.”

The Biden administration has gotten involved in negotiations during the strike, which has halted most aircraft production at Boeing, a top U.S. exporter. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su met with the company and the union this week.

The Boeing strike took a bite out of U.S. employment numbers in October, according to Friday’s U.S. jobs report, the last before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

President Joe Biden congratulated the union and Boeing for the new contract proposal.

“Machinists at Boeing have sacrificed over the years and deserve a strong contract,” he said in a statement on Friday, shortly after the jobs report was released.

Ortberg said on his first earnings call last week since taking the top job in August that the company has been “feverishly working to find a solution that works for the company and meets our employees’ needs.” Hours later, the workers rejected a negotiated proposal.

Boeing machinists have repeatedly pushed for higher compensation as the cost of living in the Seattle area — where technology giants like Microsoft and Amazon have ramped up staffing — has surged in recent years.

Under the new contract proposal, as in previous iterations, Boeing vowed to build whatever its next airplane will be in the Puget Sound area. One sore spot among workers is that Boeing moved 787 Dreamliner production to a non-union factory in South Carolina.

The strike has further pushed back Boeing leaders’ plans to stabilize the aerospace behemoth as it reels from the impact of production flaws and the fallout from safety issues, most recently a door plug that blew out midair from a Boeing 737 Max 9 at the start of the year.

Boeing lost more than $6 billion in the last quarter and warned it would continue to burn cash through 2025.