“This time it’s our time.” That is the theme and the slogan of nearly 28,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) who took to the picket lines on Sept. 5 in Everett, Wash., in a struggle against Boeing.
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Boeing came into these negotiations arrogantly offering paltry raises and demanding health care takeaways. Infuriated machinists voted down Boeing’s “best and final” offer by 80 percent and voted to strike by 87 percent.
On Sept. 3, IAM members gathered to hear the tally of the strike vote count, fully expecting the strike to be called and to march out of the plants at midnight. Machinist’s District Lodge 751 President Tom Wroblewski along with the Machinist’s chief negotiator Mark Blondin stunned the crowd by announcing a 48-hour delay requested by Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire. They were booed off the stage.
As union officials and negotiators retired to Disney World in Orlando, Fla., to continue talks with Boeing, many rank and file union members took to the picket lines anyway. As one IAM member told this writer, “I wasn’t actually picketing but exercising my first amendment right to protest by walking in front of the gate with a picket sign.”
Some estimates in the mainstream press said only 25 percent of workers were covering their shifts. On the morning of the second day of the 48-hour extension, it was clear that a de facto strike was underway. Union officials canceled further talks and declared the strike would officially start on Friday, Sept. 5, at midnight.
Anger at Boeing, governor Gregoire and at the IAM aristocracy is palatable on the picket line. “When this is all over Wroblewski and those guys are going to have a lot to answer for,” said 787 line machinist Mat Grier.
Boeing IAM members have struck four times in the last 20 years, the longest being 69 days in 1995. Analysts estimate the strike is costing Boeing $100 to $120 million a day—likely to grow to a lot more if the preorders for the much-delayed 787 Dreamliner are canceled.
Boeing announced its plans to build the 787 in 2003 and started a bidding war between several states as to where the assembly plant for this new plane would be located. Democrat Gary Locke, then governor of Washington, hammered out a deal with the state legislator to give Boeing a tax cut and incentive package worth $3 billion.
Thus Boeing selected the Everett plant, where the 747s are built. But only the assembly is done there—actual manufacturing of the parts has been outsourced around the world. One of the major demands of this strike is to prevent any more outsourcing and to begin bringing the production work home to Everett and the IAM. The manufacturing industry has used outsourcing as a club to force unions to make concessions and as a source of superprofits as workers around the world compete in a race to the bottom.
Boeing workers have historically set the standard for wages and benefits for union workers throughout the region, and receive tremendous support and solidarity from organized labor and other workers. On the first day of the strike, PSL members picketed with strikers in Everett. Members witnessed one car pull up and deliver a six-pack of energy drinks. Soon after a pizza delivery driver pulled up and donated two large pizzas. Many if not most cars passing the lines honked and waved in solidarity.
Workers on the picket line repeatedly mentioned that a week after the last strike was settled in 2005, mostly to the benefit of the company, Boeing executives got $40 million in bonuses.
The struggle is now moving into its second week. Workers will face the loss of their health care benefits in the third week, but there are no signs that they are about to give in. Morale on the lines is high and workers are settling in for a strong and decisive struggle.
