BOEING FACES POSSIBLE STRIKE – Roughly 30,000 workers will vote on their first full contract in 16 years
Boeing faces a possible strike as early as Friday September 13th if most of the U.S. planemaker’s factory workers in the Pacific Northwest vote on to back a work stoppage and reject a tentative deal that has enraged many of them.
Roughly 30,000 workers who produce Boeing’s 737 MAX, 767 and 777 jets in Portland, Oregon, and the Seattle area will vote on their first full contract in 16 years. A key union negotiator has acknowledged that many of the workers are angry because they wanted bigger wage hikes and other improvements.
The path to a strike, however, is far from clear. According to the union, unless a two-thirds majority votes to strike, the deal is approved, whether or not a second vote focused on contract support passes.
Workers’ discontent with the tentative agreement reached on Sunday has been on display in some of Boeing’s Seattle-area factories, with employees holding marches, banging pots and pans and blowing horns this week, one worker told Reuters.
According to a note from TD Cowen, a 50-day strike could cost Boeing an estimated $3 billion to $3.5 billion of cash flow. The Boeing workers’ last strike in 2008 shuttered plants for 52 days and impacted revenue by an estimated $100 million per day.
Boeing is carrying almost $60 billion of debt and facing scrutiny from regulators and customers, after a door plug on a near-new MAX blew off an Alaska Air jetliner while in mid-air in January. The planemaker’s shares have dropped 36.5% so far this year.
The proposed deal includes a general wage increase of 25%, a $3,000 signing bonus and pledge to build Boeing’s next commercial jet in the Seattle area, providing the program is launched within the four years of the contract.
