As far as I’m concerned, higher compensation is a long term win. If new hires are offered less, they will know they are being taken advantage of.

For instance, they could tie pay / layoffs to seniority (all your coworkers are unfireable incompetent union “good old boys” that don’t bother pretending to work any more, creating a hostile workplace and tanking company revenue), or the contract could make it unprofitable or infeasible to continue ramping up production in the union controlled facilities.

Since Boeing managed to remove the clause saying they’ll keep making planes in Washington, I’m guessing the latter happened with this deal.

If you get paid well, have good benefits, and can't get fired arbitrarily (union still allows for firing based on performance), it turns out your workers will be happier and more productive.

Also, if labor costs (paying a decent wage) tank a massive jet company, they already had many other problems under the hood. Your argument is also proven to be false, because Airbus (heavily unionized) has been eating Boeing's lunch for years since they didn't greedily spin-off everything nor slacked on quality control for the shareholders for short-term gain.

So yes this is a win for them. Being paid properly for your time is likely an issue everyone here agrees with when it’s their pay on the line.

Boeing has huge contracts and is the go to for the US Military Industrial Complex. They have plenty of contracts on hand to bring in revenue as they figure themselves out. Their ability to create problems has been clearly shown to be a tone at the top problem combined with bad management decisions that has lead to poor product delivery, regulatory missteps, and the design shortcuts that lead to accidents that brought on their most recent cycle of pain.

A lathe operator has no impact on those decisions whether she is paid $20 or $27 per hour.

It depends on the details of the contract but often the company has to pay the workers for wages lost while on strike unless they went and got a temporary job during the strike. It makes the bargaining eaiser because the company has more of an incentive to bargain in good faith since it's harder for them to "just wait it out".

But on the latter points, Boeing is a strategically important industrial company. The federal government has an incentive to ensure their long term stability, or at least the appearance of it.

A new grade 4 hourly worker at Boeing made $19 an hour before the strike. $3,040 a month before taxes. https://www.iam751.org/docs/2024/FRONTMar24.pdf

There's a reason they went on strike. $36,480 a year doesn't go far when you have to pay Seattle area rent.

That a IAM union machinist would even consider a voluntary career pivot to the retail antithesis of "Buy Union-Made & American-Made products" because of a window sign says a lot...no exaggeration necessary.

[1] https://harbor-freight-tools.careerarc.com/job-listings/harb...

[2] https://harbor-freight-tools.careerarc.com/job-listings/harb...

of course they don't, and why should they? Boeing doesn't give a f*k about its employees

> probably view the union as a bad actor

based on what? rather they seen the benefits of unionizing as otherwise you get nothing (and get laid off); this sounds like FUD

If you look at the University of California contract negotiations (different union), you’re likely to conclude that the campus and most employees are on one side, and union leadership is on the other side.

What's the alternative? Wait forever for Boeing to give workers a decent raise, which absolutely will NOT happen? Workers just got a big pay raise by demanding for it.

But yes, you're right that Union leadership is also spineless. Modern union leaders tend to appease the big bosses by giving in to what they want, trying to convince workers that the lower offers is the best they can get, and then trying to get the workers to vote for it. Stronger leadership would have rejected it because they know that workers are the soul of a company: without workers there is no company.

Is they gradually move production to non-union factories in other states then there would be a company but no [union] workers...

Hmmm. I wonder if you have a bias here.

> Also those tired of the union work culture in Everett may continue to leave

Yeah, they won't leave for not getting salary increases in line with inflation (at the very least) in 16 years, but they will leave because the union is fighting for their benefit.

What are you on?

So maybe the union should reject that contract too just to see if they can get a better deal.