Striking machinists at Boeing will vote Monday on a new contract offer

Union members will vote on Boeing's latest proposal. They have rejected two previous offers, but union leaders are backing this proposal to end the seven-week strike.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Striking machinists at Boeing vote today on the company's latest proposal.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Their strike is now on its eighth week. Union members rejected two previous contract offers, but their leaders are endorsing this latest agreement. And they're warning that members may end up with less if they don't take it.

MARTIN: NPR's Joel Rose has been following all this and is with us now to tell us more. Joel, good morning.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Good morning.

MARTIN: So what's different about this latest proposal?

ROSE: Well, union leaders say Boeing has moved a lot since its first offer back in September. Remember, the machinists voted overwhelmingly to reject that deal. The two sides then hammered out an agreement last month. Union members still voted to reject it, but the numbers were not quite as overwhelming. Now they're going to vote for a third time. Boeing is offering a 38% wage hike. That is up from 25% in their first offer, though it is still not quite the 40% raise the union wanted.

This is a modest improvement from the offer that members rejected less than two weeks ago. But union leaders are endorsing this offer. That's something they notably did not do for that previous proposal. And they say, quote, "it is time for our members to lock in these gains and confidently declare victory."

MARTIN: And what's Boeing saying about this offer?

ROSE: Well, publicly, the company is encouraging all union members to vote on the proposal. The new CEO Kelly Ortberg sent a message to employees on Friday that said in part, quote, "it's time we all come back together and focus on rebuilding the business." But in private, Ortberg also delivered an ultimatum. That is according to union district president Jon Holden. Holden told The Seattle Times that Ortberg said the company can't keep giving more, that future offers would get worse, not better. And union leaders seem to be taking Ortberg at his word. In a statement, they say, quote, we have extracted everything that we can in bargaining. And they told the members that they risk the company offering less if they don't take the deal.

MARTIN: OK, so you told us that the company is offering more money. Are there other issues, though, that could be an obstacle here?

ROSE: Retirement benefits. That really could be the wild card. Many members of the machinists' union want to restore the traditional pension plan that Boeing froze in 2014 after their last contract negotiations, and this is one key demand where Boeing has not budged. It remains a major source of anger among the union's rank and file. Boeing says it is not going back to the old pension because it's too expensive, though the company has offered to increase its contributions to employees' 401(k) retirement plans. I think that's a big reason why the union rejected the company's previous offer, and it could lead to another rejection this time.

MARTIN: OK, tell more about what this could all mean for Boeing.

ROSE: I mean, this strike is the latest chapter in a brutal year. The previous CEO was pushed out in a management shakeup. The company lost $6 billion in the third quarter, partly as a result of the strike, which has crippled production at the company's airplane factories in the Pacific Northwest. But Boeing has been having major production problems even before the strike.

It has been struggling to rebuild trust with airlines, with regulators, with the flying public. Even the defense and space side of the business is struggling as well. They took a $2 billion loss in the third quarter. The strike is having a broader economic impact, too, on suppliers and other companies that depend on Boeing. You know, more than 40,000 people are out of work through the strike. That was enough to make a dent in the national October jobs numbers that the Labor Department reported on Friday.

MARTIN: OK, real quick - when do we think we'll get results of the voting?

ROSE: Probably late tonight, maybe early tomorrow morning. The CEO of the company has said, though, it's more important to do this right than to do it fast, so it could be a little while before the factories are started up again.

MARTIN: That is NPR's transportation correspondent Joel Rose. Joel, thank you.

ROSE: You're welcome.

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