33,000 Boeing workers organized under the IAM 751 are on strike in Washington state, shutting down almost all commercial passenger plane production for one of the world’s largest aerospace manufacturers. The strike comes at the end of an 8-year contract extension forced upon the union when Boeing threatened to move plane production to the un-unionized South — IAM national leadership overrode a 2–1 membership vote against this — as a result, workers lost defined benefit pensions and were locked into a pitiful 4% general wage increase spread out over the 8 years of the contract. This falls far behind both the Washington State average rise in pay, and inflation.
Boeing is losing an estimated $100 million a day due to the strike, and it has no hope of continuing production on its primary moneymakers like the 737 Max with scab labor outside the union. John Deere infamously caused a safety incident trying to circumvent a strike in 2021, and Boeing is under far more scrutiny due to its repeated safety scandals. Boeing undoubtedly wants to end the PR crisis, dip in stock prices, and loss of revenue inflicted on them by their machinists’ strike. But news cycles expire, stock prices recover, and institutions “too big to fail” can count on being bailed out, just like the banks were after the Great Recession.
Domestically, Boeing has a monopoly on the manufacture of full-size commercial jets, it was historically the largest US exporter, and it is also the third largest US defense contractor. Deglobalization, increasing competition in the global market, and heightening military tensions driven by inter-imperialist conflict with China, mean that the US state will not allow Boeing to fail, and will place its thumb on the scale to ensure that the company comes out on top. Already, acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, who in 2023 helped avert the ILWU strike on the West Coast ports, met with IAM leadership 4 days before the union came to a tentative agreement with Boeing. Federal mediators are now convening meetings between Boeing and the IAM to restart negotiations.
Like many other unions, the IAM endorsed the Biden-Harris presidential ticket, proclaiming Biden as the most pro-union president in American history. This is despite the Biden administration and the Democrats in Congress blatantly crushing the rail workers strike in 2022, amid a similar backdrop of safety disasters caused by ruthless cost-cutting and anti-worker policies! Unions must break from both warmongering pro-big-business parties and establish their own political independence through a worker’s party — the labor movement’s partnership with a party of the bosses has always, and will always lead to attacks on and betrayals of the working class.
Striking To Win
As soon as the strike began, Socialist Alternative members joined the picket lines to support these workers in their fight, and to have discussion on what is needed to win. Many strikers are furious both with the company and their union leadership for recommending a tentative agreement just days before the strike began, which only boasted a 25% raise over 4 years while quietly eliminating performance bonuses, left its workers pensionless, increased healthcare costs, and provided only one additional floating holiday, among many other shortcomings. Workers were particularly insulted by their leadership celebrating Boeing’s promise to keep production of their next plane in the Puget Sound during the lifetime of this contract, knowing full well that Boeing won’t launch a new plane until well after this contract expires. One machinist at the Renton picket line bitterly remarked that IAM 571 president Jon Holden “sold us out for a seat at the table.”
Fundamentally, no contract with an expiration date can prevent Boeing from moving production jobs to its South Carolina facility in the long run. To truly protect jobs in the Puget Sound, IAM must tackle the same challenge the UAW is currently grappling with in unionizing the South. This would entail the IAM seriously redoubling its efforts to unionize Boeing South Carolina, alongside demonstrating the ability to unionize any other facility that Boeing tries to open. Winning significant raises in the Puget Sound can kickstart that process, though the UAW’s latest defeat at Mercedes Alabama shows that this alone cannot overcome the obstacles that have frustrated the American labor movement since the CIO launched Operation Dixie post-World War II. In the 30s, the CIO had to overcome racial divides in the workplace to build the industrial unions in the North. Today, the union movement will also need to take on a worker-led fight against the enduring effects of racial segregation in the South in order to successfully unionize the unorganized.
The current strategy set out by IAM 751 serves more to appease the membership’s desire to strike than to fight for genuine workers’ control over Boeing’s production. In the days leading up to the strike, rank-and-file workers called massive and deafening lunchtime rallies, featuring fiery speeches and chants to reject the “garbage contract” and strike. Comparatively, the picket lines have markedly lower attendance, partially because the union is primarily motivating attendance based on scheduled picketing shifts — just 4 hours a week — while strike pay is only $250 a week. Over time, this can open the door to the company driving divisions in the union between those workers with savings and those who cannot afford to live on strike pay.
Still, workers have responded to calls through informal channels like social media to hold the line. But one legacy of previous defeats is that other non-IAM workers at Boeing, such as unionized SPEEA engineers, have no legal protections if they want to respect the picket line. SPEEA engineers were specifically informed that they “will have to comply if directly ordered by a Boeing manager to do work normally done by Machinists”, despite lacking the professional training and certifications to carry out that work safely! Boeing is now using layoffs and temporary furloughs of non-IAM workers to pit workers against each other. Separate unions must cooperate to cut across the boss’s divide and conquer strategy. SPEEA and other unions at Boeing like the IAFF firefighters should take a clear position of solidarity with the IAM strike and organize sick-outs or other ways to prevent Boeing from using them to undermine the strike. The IAM should also fight for picket lines that close all production — an injury to one is an injury to all! Workers historically had to struggle for the right to unionize and strike, 80 years after the Taft-Hartley act, workers still must struggle for the right to respect the picket line.
Who Runs Boeing?
IAM 751 members recognize that this strike is more than just a fight for the economic interests of aerospace workers. The safety of air travel is fundamentally jeopardized by Boeing management’s drive for profit, and the current tentative agreement claims to address this by allowing union representatives to meet semi-regularly with the Boeing leadership, “gaining a voice” on inspection practices, production rates, training, etc. As one worker put it, “none of us asked for this”.
Workers will never be able to convince management in their meetings to build planes safely, and entering into joint councils and partnership with the company also allows the union to be blamed for future disasters caused by the boss. Workers can ensure that planes are built safely through democratically elected union committees that monitor safety and quality assurance in the plant and have the power to shut down assembly at any point, independent of management and their profit-driven deadlines.
Such committees, as joint efforts between IAM Machinists, SPEEA Engineers, and any other union involved in Boeing’s plane production, can give shape to what is ultimately needed at Boeing: a publicly-owned aerospace industry democratically run by the workers and accountable to the wider working class. Only this can protect the jobs and livelihoods of machinists and engineers from the bosses’ profit driven pillaging. Only this can ensure their hard work and expertise produces quality planes crucial to safe and affordable air travel, rather than commodities produced as cheaply as possible and weapons of war. The growing anti-war movement should stand with IAM workers in their fight against Boeing, just as the unionized workers of Boeing are uniquely positioned to take a stand against war production.
Victory To the Working Class
What truly terrifies Boeing and the ruling class is that the Machinists strike raises the question: Who controls the factory, the workers or the company? IAM 751 can press this question by mobilizing for a day of all-out strike picketing to completely close down production. Other unions such as SPEEA, WFSE and other public worker unions currently in their own contract battle with Washington state, should also mobilize in solidarity. These can serve as mass rallies where workers can discuss and decide what is needed to win victory for Boeing machinists and all workers everywhere, and maximize the pressure on Boeing by standing together in unison for the demands that must be met before the strike can end. Like every strike, but especially at Boeing, this is more than just a contract battle — but a fight for the whole working class.
Socialist Alternative Says:
- 40% General Wage Increase for all wage scales with cost-of-living adjustments tied to inflation!
- Reinstatement of Pension Benefits!
- Closed Union Shop, an End to Union-Busting outsourcing!
- An End to Mandatory Overtime and 4 weeks paid vacation!
- Fully-Funded Employer-Paid Healthcare!
