The Boeing plant in the United States that produces military equipment and weapons has had a strike involving thousands of workers.
After unsuccessful negotiations over pay increases and other terms of a new contract, the strike broke out at Boeing facilities in St. Louis and St. Charles, Missouri, as well as Mascoutah, Illinois.
A modified four-year labor agreement, according to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, was rejected by about 3,200 local members on Sunday.
The general vice president of the union’s Midwest division, Sam Cicinelli, said in a statement, “IAM District 837 members build the aircraft and defense systems that keep our country safe.” They “deserve nothing less than a contract that protects their families and acknowledges their unmatched expertise.”
Following the workers’ rejection of a previously proposed contract, which included a 20 percent pay increase over four years and $5, 000 in ratification bonuses, the vote came after a week-long cooling-off period.
After workers turned down Boeing’s most recent offer, which did not add to the proposed wage increase, Boeing warned over the weekend that it anticipated the strike. However, the proposal eliminated a scheduling rule that would have affected how much overtime is earned by employees.
“We’re disappointed that our employees rejected an offer that featured 40 percent average wage growth and resolved their principal problem with alternative work schedules,” said senior St Louis site executive Dan Gillian, vice president and general manager of Boeing Air Dominance.
Our non-striking workforce can continue supporting our customers because we are prepared for a strike and have fully implemented our contingency plan.
More than one-third of Boeing’s revenue comes from its defense, space, and security business. However, Boeing’s CEO, Kelly Ortberg, stated last week that a strike by the machinists who manufacture the company’s commercial jetliners and weapons systems would have much less of an impact than a walkout last year by 33, 000 workers.
Ortberg claimed that this is “a lot less significant” than what we saw last fall. We’ll survive this, so to speak. The effects of the strike wouldn’t bother me too much.
The 2024 strike caused more than seven weeks of depressing conditions for Boeing’s factories in Washington state. Following the January 2014 incident involving an Alaska Airlines flight where a door plug blew off a 737 Max aircraft, Boeing was the subject of a number of federal investigations.
Boeing plane production was supposed to be limited until the Federal Aviation Administration was confident in its ability to manufacture quality controls at the company. Concerns about the safety of the 737 Max resurfaced as a result of the door-plug incident. In 2018, and 2019, 346 people were killed when two of the planes crashed less than five months apart.
Ortberg informed analysts that the business has gradually increased to a 38-per-month production cap set by the FAA and expects to ask regulators for permission to do so in the coming months.
Boeing reported last week that both its revenue and losses had decreased for the second quarter. In contrast to the loss of $ 1.44 billion during the same period last year, the company lost $ 611 million in the second quarter.
Source: Aljazeera
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