Boeing: Strike ended – workers accept collective bargaining offer

In the wage dispute at Boeing, employees accepted a salary offer from the aircraft manufacturer. The union announced this on Monday (local time). This ends a momentous seven-week strike. Around 33,000 Boeing employees from the Seattle area will return to work.

The workforce of Airbus’ competitor from Seattle paralyzed production of the best-selling Boeing 737 Max and the long-haul 767 and 777 series. This cost Boeing more than a billion dollars and is likely to further increase the backlog of deliveries.

The Boeing proposal was accepted in Monday’s vote with a majority of 59 percent. A week ago, the workers rejected the previous offer of an increase of 35 percent over four years.

With the new contract, the workers will also receive a one-off payment of $12,000 (around 11,000 euros). The union had already negotiated the receipt of bonus payments, which were originally intended to be abolished, in the second offer. The workers must now go back to work by November 12th at the latest.

Boeing workers had accepted several zero rounds over the past decade and now wanted a significant increase. Boeing announced a few weeks ago that it would cut ten percent of its jobs. The cuts are expected to affect around 17,000 jobs.

Boeing has been in crisis for years after a series of mishaps. Recently, quality management came into even greater focus after a fuselage fragment broke off during climb in January on a virtually new Boeing 737-9 Max from Alaska Airlines. It was only through fortunate circumstances that no one was seriously injured. Accident investigators concluded that the delivered aircraft was missing four fasteners on the fuselage section. Boeing was unable to provide any documentation regarding the assembly work when requested by authorities.