Why Boeing workers are on strike

At 12:01 am on Friday, 33,000 Seattle and Portland area Boeing workers with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) went on strike.

It’s the first time since 2008 that workers at Boeing, one of the world’s two major commercial aircraft suppliers, have walked off the job. The strike won’t affect commercial air travel, but the work stoppage, which affects nearly 20 percent of Boeing’s workforce, could cost the company as much as $1 billion per week and will likely drive the company’s already-flagging stock price down further. It could also have ramifications for the US economy overall; Boeing is one of the US’s biggest manufacturers, and its roughly 10,000 suppliers in all 50 states could be impacted if the work stoppage stretches on.

Boeing and IAM had been negotiating a new contract for weeks, and seemed to reach a deal Sunday that would have provided a 25 percent wage increase over the next four years and new benefits to workers. IAM leaders recommended their members take the deal, but 96 percent voted to reject it, setting the stage for Friday’s strike once the old contract expired.

Union members argue that the raise was not enough to make up for the skyrocketing cost of living. They’re striking for a 40 percent wage increase, as well as more input into product safety and a return to the pension system that they gave up in a 2014 contract.

IAM workers are also demanding that future Boeing aircraft be manufactured in the unionized shops of the Pacific Northwest, rather than at a non-unionized factory in South Carolina. The Boeing workers’ demand for a say in the future of their industry is part of a trend; United Auto Workers members, during their strike last summer, also demanded input into the union’s involvement in manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles.

The work stoppage affects plants in locations throughout the Pacific Northwest: Everett and Renton, Washington, where Boeing’s aircraft are assembled; Portland, Oregon, where parts are manufactured; and Moses Lake, Washington, along with Edwards Air Force Base in California, where aircraft are stored and undergo repairs.

The Boeing workers could have real leverage

As the strike begins, there’s potential for Boeing’s workers to win further concessions from the company. In particular, the frustration of Boeing’s key customers — namely, large airlines like Southwest, Alaska, and American — could provide IAM with significant leverage. Many commercial flights are full, and orders for the company’s 737 and 777 models are already delayed. Airlines have also had to deal with major problems with Boeing planes in recent years, including a terrifying incident in January, in which a door plug flew off during an Alaska Airlines flight, and two deadly plane crashes in 2018 and 2019. The company is embroiled in multiple legal battles due to its catastrophic safety failures.

“You’re talking about all the big airlines,” Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School, told Vox. “People don’t want to be afraid to fly in an airplane, so [Boeing is] going to have all of the pressure from your primary customers, which are the airlines, saying, ‘Wait a minute, don’t mess with your workers. We want them to build them correctly. We don’t need any issues or problems.’”

Boeing has lost an estimated $27 billion since 2019 due to its series of cascading crises. It’s currently $60 billion in debt and its stock price has fallen 38 percent so far this year. Boeing’s aerospace program has also suffered from recent high-profile difficulties.

Its many serious missteps are, as Vox’s Marin Cogan wrote in March, due at least in part to a highly corporatized structure at the company that in recent decades has focused less on solid engineering than on shareholder returns. Those issues are not fixable without investing in the industry-leading engineering for which Boeing used to be known — and doing so requires an ability to retain a workforce of highly trained employees.

Whether that leverage and the company’s financial woes are enough to get workers what they want remain to be seen. But it may not take long: As of Friday, the union and the company have both said they are ready to get back to the bargaining table.