A four week indefinite strike by 18,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) dramatically curtailed production across Boeing, main facilities, forcing the giant aircraft manufacturer to concede on workers’ pensions and healthcare. But just two weeks after negotiating a return to work, the bosses have demanded 235 job cuts at its Wichita plant.
The union’s members voted by an 86 per cent majority to reject management’s supposedly “final offer” and walked out on 2 September from three major plants run by the key Pentagon contractor and the world’s largest producer of commercial airliners.
Most of the strikers are based in Washington state, with the remainder at factories in Gresham, Oregon and Wichita, Kansas, where Boeing has outsourced most of its operation and the workforce is divided between the IAM, and the Teamsters and a much smaller union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, both of which which scabbed on the IAM strike.
The company’s 30 August three-year contract proposal offered a basic pay rise of 5.5 per cent, combined with a one-off sweetener of approximately $6,000 (c £3,300). But in exchange for this modest increase, the company’s bosses demanding a huge increase of nearly 300 per cent in workers’ health insurance contributions and the elimination of post-retirement health benefits for future Boeing employees. They also wanted to restrict the rise in the bosses’ monthly pension contribution to a mere $6 an employee – the lowest level in the 50-year history of the Boeing pension scheme.
Other key issues in this battle included job security and working practices. The corporation’s hard line triggered the first national walk-out at Boeing since 1995, when more than 30,000 workers were involved in a 69-day dispute.
James Darrah, a Boeing employee for 18 years, explained to the New York Times the source of workers’ anger: “We took a pretty rough contract last time because times were tough, with the expectation that when things got better, you’d get a lot more. But now times are good for Boeing; its stock price is double what it was three years ago.”
The deal that was agreed by a four to one margin at mass meetings on 27th September increased pension payments from $60 a month for every year worked to $70, new retirees included. Cuts in healthcare benefits were withdrawn. An 8 per cent one-off bonus plus another $6,000 spread over the next two years was also won.
However, much more could have been won. The strike cut Boeing’s output to a 10 year low, precisely when it was trying to make up ground on its European rival, Airbus. But the union leaders’ timidity – particularly its refusal to call mass pickets to pressure the scab unions to join the dispute – and its haste in recommending a compromise have given Boeing the green light to go back on the offensive.
Bob Brewer, negotiator for the scab SPEEA, has even welcomed the job cuts, saying Boeing management is “going through cost reductions trying to become competitive so they can maintain the business here in Wichita. I’m very hopeful that is the reason these decisions are being made, that it’s good business decisions and nothing else.”
Meanwhile, more than 4,000 members of a small craft union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (which, incidentally, did back the IAM strike) continue their indefinite strike against Northwest Airlines, the USA’s fourth largest passenger carrier, in opposition to job cuts and a 25 per cent cut in pay. They have been on strike since 19th August.
Unfortunately, other unions, including the IAM, have crossed the picket lines at Northwest since the strike began in mid-August. The other unions’ “reward”, however, is likely to include large-scale redundancies and similar attacks on pay, terms and conditions as Northwest has used Chapter 11 bankruptcy provisions as a cloak for pursuing a drastic restructuring programme. In a dispute that mirrors the Gate Gourmet lock out in the UK, Northwest claims also to have recruited more than 50 per cent of a repalacement workforce, and even the AMFA accepts that 47 of its members have now gone back to work.
What both these disputes show is that the American working class is capable of sustaining serious strike action against a voracious bosses’ offensive in the airline industry, but that they are poorly served by rotten leaders, who will scab on each others’ struggles rather than strike a united front, and who will paint job cuts up as a positive development rather than lead a strike themselves.
For the current round of struggles to become the start of a real fightback, rank and file unionists must organize to control their own disputes, and must respect with each other’s picket lines, and bring about a single, democratic and fighting union across the airline industry.
American workers also face huge political barriers, such as the Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws, which stack the odds against them, such as is happening at Northwest. They must respond in kind. If the bosses declare bankruptcy, they must automatically renounce their right to any further say in what happens to “their” property. Nationalise Northwest Airlines with no compensation to the union busters and run it under workers’ control.