Boeing factory workers step up pressure as strike deadline looms

Boeing Co.’s largest union planned to hold a rally and strike-sanction vote on Wednesday, ratcheting up pressure on company negotiators as contract talks enter a crucial phase ahead of a potential walkout in September.

The International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents about 32,000 Boeing mechanics in Washington and Oregon, was scheduled to take over the home ballpark for the Seattle Mariners professional baseball team during a day intended to showcase union solidarity.

Their goal is to generate member turnout large enough to shut down the planemaker’s factories around Washington and Oregon for a few hours — a potential precursor for what’s to come later in the year. Although the vote is largely symbolic, it will signal the union’s resolve in pursuing 40% pay increases, a board seat and better retirement benefits.

“Today, we have more leverage than ever before, and we are going to use it,” Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, said in a July union newspaper column. He urged members to silence the factories, “so the company can hear what we’re saying.”

Boeing said it respects and supports the right of its workers to participate in the vote.

“We remain confident we can reach a deal that balances the needs of our employees and the business realities we face as a company,” the company said.

The strike authorization vote is strictly procedural and ensures union members will receive strike benefits if they do eventually walk off the job. The union will vote again once Boeing makes its final offer, likely on Sept. 12. If the agreement is rejected, members will face a separate vote on whether to strike at 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 13, once the current contract expires.

Investors are paying close attention to any labor dispute. A shutdown of Boeing’s Seattle-area industrial base would add to the company’s operational and financial woes, potentially derailing a recovery in the second half of the year, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst George Ferguson wrote in a July 3 note.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Boeing, whose leadership is in limbo as the company’s board searches for a new chief executive officer. Speaking at a Senate hearing in June that probed the company’s safety culture, current CEO Dave Calhoun said that workers would get a raise, when confronted with his own remuneration package.

The planemaker faces multiple investigations and the disgrace of pleading guilty to a felony count. It slowed production to address quality lapses brought to light by a nearly catastrophic accident in early January, when a door plug fell off an Alaska Airlines flight.

Union members have been stepping up activity in Boeing’s factories, even interrupting a media tour of a 737 aircraft assembly line last month with horns and drums. IAM District 751 has a long history of activism. Workers walked off the job for eight weeks in 2008 — the last time the union local negotiated a full contract agreement with Boeing.

“Boeing is dealing with a lot of bad blood,” said Richard Aboulafia, a managing director with AeroDynamic Advisory. “Good leadership could defuse this situation. Instead you have no leadership.”

Johnsson writes for Bloomberg.