Ten Years Later Boeing Workers Faced With Same Battles. A Different Approach is Needed.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

9-12-24

 

In November 2013 Boeing workers’, members of IAM District Lodge 751 AFL-CIO, rejected a contract with deep concessions by a 67% to 33% margin.  One of the main reasons for this rejection was Boeing’s efforts to freeze pensions as the company moved from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution savings plan.

 

This was a bold move by the Boeing workers and I wrote at the time:

“By rejecting that contract, IAM members were standing in the forefront of the struggle not only to defend their benefits and jobs, but the future for all workers, particularly young workers entering or new to the workforce.”

 

Yet a month later, January the third 2014, these same workers voted to accept these drastic concessions by a 1% margin.  What happened in just over a month?

 

What happened was Boeing bosses went on the offensive with a campaign of terror aimed at forcing Boeing workers to back off. They threatened to move production to non-union plants in the US South and openly submitted bids to other states. This, despite Boeing already receiving $9 billion in subsidies from Washington taxpayers. The big business media added its efforts to the terror campaign.

 

Throughout the month all the politicians in one-way or another pressured the workers and claimed the state’s future is doomed if they didn’t take concessions. Jay Inslee, the lawyer and Washington State’s Democratic governor hailed the acceptance of the January deal along with Boeing execs.

 

Tom Buffenbarger, the IAM, International President at the time and other national officials forced this vote over the objections of the local leadership. As staunch defenders of profits and the market, they took up the baton under what were really conditions of warfare, and, forced the January vote on a contract that had already been rejected and that the local leadership opposed. The month-long war of terror inflicted on the Boeing workers took its toll and they got their “yes” vote, but only barely. "We missed it by one per cent because people were confused and worried about their jobs,” one worker said, “I’m still just numb,” said another.

 

Here we are a decade later and Boeing workers, the same members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751, will be voting on a new contract today, September 12^th 2024. If they reject the contract 33,000 of them could be off the job by midnight.

 

Boeing, and no doubt the leaders of the IAM who are supporting the contract (they never have to work under them), are hoping a 25% wage increase over four years (workers want 40%) will sway the vote in the company’s favor. I am pretty sure that Boeing’s “commitment” to future investment in the Puget Sound region won’t hold much water. We know that market forces and profits trump any commitment big business gives to working people. Biden forced railway workers to accept a contract they had already declined by getting emergency legislation through Congress that took the right to strike away from them in order to protect the railroad bosses’ profits.

 

But the big issue is the pension that was lost previously is not returned in this contract; it is this that might bring a “no” vote.

 

"We recommended acceptance because we can't guarantee we can achieve more in a strike," John Holden, IAM president says. Naturally, nothing can be guaranteed but success or failure is dependent on what strategy and tactics Holden, the leadership of the IAM and the leadership of the AFL-CIO, particularly in the Seattle area and Washington State, intend to bring to the game.

 

Holden went on to say, to his members, "But that is your decision to make and is a decision that we will protect and support, no matter what."  This is standard procedure from the labor hierarchy and a bit of a trick.

 

Holden would support the decision, that’s what democracy is all about. So if the workers’ reject the contract, vote to strike and fail to attain their goals, it’s down to them. Holden and the leadership are supporting the members’ right to vote on the strike. If it fails, it’s not on the leadership’s head. They warned them. They said they should accept the offer that doesn’t restore the pension. Holden is coming from a position of weakness and the bosses know it.

 

This is standard fare and I have had many conflicts with the way Labor Notes and other labor publications and groups, (DSA for example) that report on these labor disputes, or class battles to be more accurate.  Chris Brooks, who writes or wrote for Labor Notes, reported on organizing campaigns by the UAW in the South and referred to the “union’s” failed strategy or tactics. But tactics are not developed by the “the Union” they are developed by the leadership of the union and in this case we are referring to the IAM.

 

Holden and the national union leadership do not have a winning strategy. They have at best an organized retreat strategy. In addition, every top union official from Liz Schuler on down supports the Team Concept, the view that workers and bosses have the same interests, are on the same team. This has been a disaster for workers and at the heart of the leadership’s class collaboration.

 

The Team Concept is being played here as the new CEO of Boeing, Kelly Ortbeg’s letter to workers yesterday shows. "A strike would put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together," he wrote. “Ortberg and Boeing Commercial Airplanes boss Stephanie Pope hit the floor at the company's jet assembly plants in Everett and Renton this week to talk with workers about the proposed deal.” Reuters reported. They’re worried.

 

“Our shared recovery”? That’s a good one. It reminds me of the old Lone Ranger joke, “What do you mean we white man”. The situation is very similar. Tonto said that to the Lone Ranger when they were surrounded by “hostile Indians” the Boeing workers are surrounded by hostile bosses, their mass media, their courts, their police and a leadership that wants us all to just get along.  A workers future and the CEO or investors future have nothing in common, we do not travel along the same road.

 

Boeing over the years has spent millions bribing politicians in Congress as well as influencing politicians and US diplomats. It’s estimated the company has earned $50 billion to $100 billion in revenue from sales to Israel.

 

On top of it all, the Boeing management as we know, has been mired in corruption and graft. The biggest example is the 737 Max airplane, two of which crashed killing hundreds of people. Boeing has been forced to dole out over $4 billion in fines and penalties. Boeing workers had no role in this. The CEO before Ortbeg who took the job last month, was Dave Calhoun who received $22.5 million compensation in 2022 and $15 million in shares in 2023 despite the state of the company.

 

A Strategy That Can Win

As we saw with Biden’s breaking of the railroad strike, the Boeing workers are up against it; a leadership that has no real plan for winning the fight and all the forces of big business including the Democrats against them. But objectively we have the power, but in today’s climate no individual unions, even powerful ones in major industries can defeat the combined forces of big business.

 

Any strike must appeal openly to other unions to join in with actions of some kind. Working class communities must be drawn in to the struggle much like in the Hormel strike back in the 1980’s. We all have the same desires and demands.; our families are dependent on our conditions at work. We have to make these battles more openly class battles. The employers don’t hesitate to do that. We have to appeal to the unemployed and under employed through calling for a shorter workweek with no loss in pay to create jobs.

 

Over the past decades we have seen working class people being priced out of a university education and public education is in an extreme crisis and teachers under assault from all directions. Educators in 2018 and 2019 showed us we can violate the anti-union laws and win. They showed what has to be done to counter the capitalist offensive and we must build on that. Unions and all workers in disputes on the job must link them to social issues and campaigns; our most powerful weapon is our power on the job.

 

There are laws against class solidarity in action. All that is supported are harmless acts of solidarity, picket lines that are 24-hour gatherings nothing more, and protests that do not disrupt production and profit taking. We have to start from the position that we will organize mass picketing and actions that challenge and violate anti-labor, anti-worker laws. A start must be to publicly campaign against the Team Concept relying instead on our own strength on the job and breaking the disastrous death marriage the present trade union leadership has with the Democratic Party.

 

If the Boeing workers choose to strike today, I hope that the action gets back the pension they lost. Regardless of the outcome, defensive battles are not enough. Boeing is a major US corporation and rank and file workers should call for Boeing to be taken in to public ownership as a first step toward workers’ control and management of this vital industry. The state of this corporation, the deaths due to plane disasters, the cover up, the lies; this is the legacy of the private production. The private sector is incapable of managing and should not own, the forces that produce the necessities we need in society.