“I’m running out of savings,” says Danny, a 36-year veteran of Boeing who builds 737 MAX passenger jets. He said his wife had a pacemaker installed before his Boeing health benefits lapsed on September 30, costing $1,800 out of pocket; she’s now applying for government medical assistance, he says, but he worries about her health.
Danny is among the striking machinists picketing at the entrance to Boeing’s Seattle Delivery Center. Fueled by coffee and doughnuts, warmed by a constellation of roadside burn barrels, and armed with an array of signs, the machinists are nearing 50 days on strike as their union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), negotiates a renewed and improved contract with Boeing for 33,000 workers across the West Coast.
On the surface, the crux of the impasse lies in figures. IAM and Boeing representatives have jockeyed over pay raises and retirement plans; workers say pay has to make up for a decade of nearly stagnant wage growth—and say pensions, which machinists lost in a 2014 negotiation, have to come back.
But it’s not just about that. Mike Evans, a machinist and union steward on the 737 MAX flight line, says major cultural issues and operational deficiencies remain alive and well—an elemental crisis transcending the quantitative thrust of the strike. Evans says retaliation is “still a big problem” against workers who file safety complaints or flag other lapses, a constant issue he encounters as a steward. “There are members in human resources…[who] do try to work with me, but the retaliation culture is still very prevalent here,” he says.
Another 737 MAX machinist who’s been on the job for two-and-a-half years—and who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation—says that, despite Boeing’s slogan to “speak up,” some managers will move workers or change them to a different shift if they do, in fact, speak up.
“Especially after the two tragedies…I think we’re forgetting a fundamental issue in terms of Boeing strategy, of their business plan and how they operate,” she says, referring to the crashes of two 737 MAX planes that resulted in the deaths of 346 people.
That fear has compounding effects, Evans adds. “There’s people who see that other people are getting retaliated against: They see that their coworkers are not getting justice for it, and so it prevents them from speaking up,” he says. “As a result, you just have a lot of perpetuating incompetence.”
“Perpetuating incompetence” doesn’t bode well for an aircraft manufacturer already mired in safety lapses and federal investigations. It puts workers in danger on the job, and can spell doom for people flying in those aircraft. Outliving picketers’ soggy signs or the embers of their burn barrels, these ongoing defects may seriously hamper new Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg’s stated efforts to revamp the aerospace giant’s long-term prospects through a “fundamental culture change.”
Seattle Met reached out to Boeing and IAM 751 for comment. Boeing declined to answer whether leadership has heard from machinists about continuing safety concerns, but pointed to a new letter of understanding in the redlined contract proposal between the company and its machinists. It calls for a yearly meeting between union leadership and Boeing’s Aerospace Safety Standing Committee Chair “to discuss safety related issues.” It also establishes a Senior Executive Labor-Management Committee (SELMC) of Boeing and union representatives, which, in semiannual meetings, will discuss strategy, production, quality management, and safety management; and commits a “Joint Council” of similar leadership to monthly meetings that complement those efforts. (A union spokesperson attempted to connect Seattle Met to IAM 751 president Jon Holden, but could not do so before press time.)
The striking machinists appear doubtful that the implementation of more committees will translate into greater safety without commensurate accountability. The machinist who feared reprisal says using existing channels for complaints, such as the Ethics Office, can inadvertently flag workers for retaliation from higher-ups. And Evans says malfeasant managers are “well-versed in finding loopholes,” regardless of the rules that are put into writing. (“I’m not saying all managers are bad,” he emphasizes. “There’s a lot of them that I do trust.”)
I asked what Ortberg and other leadership can realistically do. The answer, Evans says, is to “clean house,” creating a leadership environment where “speaking up” is possible. Though Ortberg has declined to meet directly with union leadership, it appears the workers have the upper hand. To paraphrase Seattle Times aerospace reporter Dominic Gates, Boeing lacks leverage the way it did during contract negotiations a decade ago. Without successful product development and expansion, the company doesn’t have a future assembly line to dangle over workers or to push back at their demands. What’s more, Dr. Dana Cloud, whose book We Are the Union: Democratic Unionism and Dissent at Boeing covers the 1995 machinist strikes, tells Seattle Met that the recent successes of other labor movements—from longshoremen to university workers—demonstrate the continued potential for strikes to furnish concessional gains.
Picketers’ savings are taking a hit, suppliers may lay off more workers, nearby businesses are struggling, but machinists anticipate that a yes-worthy contract will come soon. Last Tuesday, IAM 751 announced that it “had a productive face-to-face meeting with the company to address key bargaining issues” thanks to the ongoing assistance of labor secretary Julie Su. On Monday they will vote on another deal. Rank-and-file machinists don’t want a Boeing Bust-esque “turn out the lights” decline. They see their strike as a way to set things on a more sustainable path for the company.
“My goal is to…make [Boeing] better than what it used to be,” Evans says, who hopes to work there for the rest of his career. “It’s a staple of the Northwest… We have a few road bumps that we need to smooth out, which are not going to be easy, but I think we will get there. It’s just a matter of cooperation.”