Vote to come in the next 3 to 5 days.

Here's some of the news so far:

From the Guardian:

Both sides had shown recent signs of wanting an end to the strike. Wall Street analysts estimated Boeing was losing $100 million in revenue for every day its plants were closed, while striking workers lost their usual healthcare benefits after one month on strike and were receiving a meager $150 per week strike pay from the union.

The union said that details of the accord would be withheld until they can be compiled and distributed to IAM members in all Boeing locations. (Reporting by Ilaina Jonas, Bill Rigby and Laura Myers; Editing by Bernard Orr and Mathew Veedon)

AP quoted IAM spokesman Frank Larkin:

Francis "Frank" Larkin, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Washington, D.C., told The Associated Press the deal was reached shortly before 9 p.m. EDT Monday, in the fifth day of talks at Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service headquarters in Washington and the 52nd day of the walkout.

And these are my favorite quotes from the AP piece, mostly because AP isn't being anti-union or anti-worker (for once), I mean they actually include a quote from a statement from Mark Blondin, IAM negotiator! For the life of me, I can't even imagine why AP would include it, they aren't exactly worker friendly, but whatever, I still like seeing it.

According to a statement issued by the union, the settlement "will provide job security for its members and limit the amount of work outside vendors can perform in the workplace."

IAM represents about 25,000 workers in and around Seattle, 1,500 in Gresham, Ore., and 750 in Wichita, Kan. Participants in the talks included IAM President Tom Buffenbarger and General Vice President Rich Michalski.

"I think we've addressed all the major concerns that our members have had," Buffenbarger said by telephone.

The union withheld additional details of the agreement pending distribution to the membership, but its statement said the pact was unanimously endorsed by IAM negotiators and will be submitted for a ratification vote in three to five days. A simple majority is required for approval.

"This tentative agreement is the result of hard work and great sacrifice by many people," the union's aerospace coordinator and chief negotiator, Mark Blondin, said in the statement, "but no one deserves more credit than the workers at Boeing, who conducted themselves with dignity and determination throughout this ordeal.

"On behalf of the entire negotiating committee, I want to say it has been our honor to serve as their representatives."

Oh, never mind, I know why AP put that in, because it's actually on the IAM site:

The tentative agreement has the unanimous endorsement of the IAM negotiating committee and will be presented to members for a ratification vote, which will take place in 3-5 days. A simple majority is required to ratify the tentative agreement.

“This tentative agreement is the result of hard work and great sacrifice by many people,” said IAM Aerospace Coordinator Mark Blondin. “But no one deserves more credit than the workers at Boeing, who conducted themselves with dignity and determination throughout this ordeal. On behalf of the entire negotiating committee, I want to say it has been our honor to serve as their representatives.”

AP didn't exactly have to work for the story, did they?

And one last piece, from United Press International:

Boeing issued a statement saying the deal provides annual pay raises and improved pension benefits, while allowing the company to retain "the flexibility necessary to manage its business, while making changes to the contract language to address the union's issues on job security, pay and benefits."

The company said it had dropped its insistence on healthcare changes that would have had employees pay more for their coverage.

Striking union machinists at the Boeing assembly plant in Everett, Wash., said the strike was about protecting their jobs from outsourcing, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

In addition to the IAM and Boeing tentative agreement, the UPI piece further noted a little bit about SPEEA:

Boeing's white-collar union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, agreed Monday to postpone the opening session of its contract talks, The Seattle Times said. The talks, scheduled to begin Tuesday, will begin Wednesday instead.

Hope SPEEA has successful negotiations and I eagerly await the details from IAM on the contract specifics, but it was nice to see that Boeing put out just a few of the specifics themselves in terms of health care costs and outsourcing.

For up to the minute news, check out the IAM local 751 site. They've also posted a short contract synopsis and here's just a little teaser on the job security stuff:

Letter of Understanding #2 – Updated Letter of Understanding to protect nearly 2,200 facilities/maintenance employees currently on the payroll for life of the Agreement.

Revisions to Article 21.7 - Expanded the scope of our subcontracting review. Secured the ability to compete for work that moves from one Boeing facility to another Boeing facility.

Improved Letter of Understanding #37 with the following protections.
• Forklift Drivers, MPRF’s, Factory Consumables Handlers, Environmental Control Workers and Shipping/Distribution will not be laid off or removed from their job classification and grade as a result of Materials Delivery and Inventory Process. This revision expanded protection to 2,920 jobs for the life of the Agreement.
• Except for 787 final assembly, vendors are limited to delivering products to designated areas only. From there, bargaining unit employees will track use, disbursement, acquisition, and/or inventory of parts, materials, tools, kits and other goods or products.
• Jointly work with the Company to improve material delivery process and ensure our members grow with the new technology and innovations.
• Parties will explore options for retraining or reassigning bargaining unit employees to equal level jobs when employees are impacted by process and technology changes.

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Boeing seems determined to sink itself:

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Main table negotiations for new, three-year, contracts covering 20,300 engineers and technical workers at The Boeing Company start Tuesday (Oct. 28), in SeaTac.

Negotiations between the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local 2001, and Boeing start after eight months of disappointing preliminary talks. The first meaningful discussion only recently took place, according to SPEEA Executive Director Ray Goforth. Union leaders started advising members in May to save money for a possible strike.

“Early indications are that these will be very difficult negotiations,” Goforth said. “Engineers and technical workers are the life’s blood of Boeing, but the current regime at corporate headquarters treats them as mere vendors selling a service to Chicago. This disrespect has to end.”

Talks involve two contracts. The first covers 13,390 engineers and a second contract for 6,889 technical workers. While the majority of workers work in the Puget Sound region, the contracts cover some employees in Oregon, Utah and California. Both contracts expire Dec. 1.

Negotiations for 700 engineers at Boeing Wichita start Nov. 13. The Wichita contract expires Dec. 5.

Boeing remains determined to change SPEEA contracts in several areas. Among the changes are fragmenting the union into small pieces, eliminating the defined benefit pension for new employees, shifting healthcare costs onto employees and accelerating the outsourcing of engineering and design work to suppliers, contractors and overseas companies.

Based on Boeing’s own data, many SPEEA-represented employees need significant pay increases to reach average wages in the aerospace industry. Union officials said for Boeing to remain a market-leading company, it must pay industry leading wages. Other contract improvements proposed by SPEEA include a meaningful cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA), increasing vacation to industry standards, bereavement pay when a close relative dies and for Boeing to follow Airbus North America and honor Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday.

“Everybody wins if we get a good contract,” said Dave Patzwald, chair of the Professional Negotiating Team. “We’re hopeful. We’ll know soon.”

Boeing remains an island of success in the economy with $7.5 billion in cash reserves. On Wednesday (Oct. 22), the commercial airplanes division announced third quarter profits of $694 million. Profits on the defense side were $845 million, up 4% from the same quarter last year. Total order backlog is $349 billion.

I've said this before and I'm gonna say it again, INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS WEAKEN THE BARGAINING POSITION OF WORKERS. Boeing is interested in "fragmenting the union into small pieces" because doing so means that SPEEA is in line with the crap the UAW has carved out over the past few years. How'd that work for GM, Chrysler, Ford and the UAW in the end? Not well for any of them.

Need more on what's going on for IAM right now, head over to the IAM site for more. They are keeping the site updated at least daily.

Strike Update - October 26, 2008

Contract talks continued late into the evening Sunday and will resume first thing Monday morning. No details will be released until this latest round of contract talks have concluded.

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I've been pretty impressed lately with how the IAM has been communicating. In the post right before this, you'll see a Boeing striker using sign language, something I've never seen on a Union video. There there's also how IAM communicates on their contract site and there's also their use of Youtube, like this IAM produced video.



IAM is doing a much better job getting the word out and organizing strikers than the UAW did at American Axle during their 11 week strike. It's week 8 now and there is a constant update from IAM. CONSTANT updating, just look at their site. They're using their site the way a union should, as a communication tool.

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Just a reminder of what's at stake in the strike



More from IAM:

Strike update - October 25, 2008

Union negotiators continued meeting with the federal mediators and Company negotiators throughout Saturday and into the evening with additional talks scheduled for Sunday. As previously reported, no details of the talks will be available until this round of talks have concluded.

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Thanks George; thanks for interviewing Ray.

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Sometimes, I think we just need a reminder that workers are on the front lines. Sometimes, we really just need to remember that.



Too often, we all get caught up in our own lives, our own struggles, even our own work toward a Democratic super-majority and White House. But there are people in this country really struggling. For Boeing workers, this all amounts to a slap in their collective face; the face of a worker who's sacrificed for Boeing to make it profitable. Profitable to the tune of $58 Billion annually.

Businessweek took Boeing to task for their arrogance:

Instead, Boeing's effort misfired badly. The machinists rejected the company's offer by 86%. Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Alan R. Mulally, who's running the show while new Boeing CEO W. James McNerney Jr. learns the ropes, denies that the company attempted to divide the union membership. Still, what's puzzling is why he hasn't yet found a face-saving way to end the standoff. A close reading of management's offer suggests that it could meet the IAM's key pension demands for just $90 million more over the three-year life of a new labor contract. Since that comes to less than 1% of the nearly $4 billion the company will spend on the IAM's total wage-and-benefit expense over that period, it's difficult to see what Boeing hopes to gain by a lengthy showdown. That's particularly true in light of analysts' estimates that Boeing will rack up more than $90 million in costs each month that the walkout drags on.

snip

Underlying the current standoff are the poor relations Boeing has long had with the IAM. That became clear in last-minute talks between Calhoun and Blondin just before the strike began. The two were deadlocked over yet another relatively minor issue, involving worker training. Blondin recalls asking: "I just don't understand why you always fight us." Blondin says Calhoun replied: "You just don't get it. We represent Corporate America. You represent labor. We are always going to be adversaries." Boeing says Blondin's account was taken out of context.

Whatever the exact figures, the sums causing the impasse are essentially rounding errors for a company that hauls in $54 billion in annual revenues. With any savings to Boeing soon to be eaten up in the strike's first month, what's really driving Boeing remains a mystery.

Here's hoping this isn't anything like the 11 week American Axle strike.

In one respect, Boeing's ahead of the curve...they posted a power point to youtube, threatening workers with their "Best and Final" offer, the offer alluded to by BusinessWeek . Um, Boeing, you can do oh so much better than the offer you made and you know it. There's $54 billion in annual revenues saying you can do oh so much better than this:



Currently, talks have stalled and it's all about Boeing still, from Reuters:

But late on Monday, Boeing said in a statement that the latest talks were adjourned without an agreement and that no new talks were currently scheduled.

The union wants to bid on work and parts that have been outsourced. If these workers can compete, then why not? Boeing doesn't want to even open it up; it's a no sell for Boeing and in the end, what Boeing wants (more outsourcing) will end up costing jobs to the men and women of IAM.

They've been on strike now for 5 weeks. September 6th, 2008 is a long time to go without regular pay checks. Strike pay is not nearly enough to get these families by, pay for food or pay for mortgages.

Come on Boeing, do right by these workers; they've done right by you.

Here's hoping that we take a minute and look beyond all the current races going on right now. There really are real bread and butter issues to solve. If you have a minute, let Boeing know how you feel by DONATING to the strike fund:

Strike Needs
There are many items we use everyday during a strike. Some items are donated and others are purchased.

We are grateful to every individual, company and organization who has donated items.

If you have any strike related items you would like to donate, please bring them by the hall nearest you.

Wood -- Clean burnable wood is always welcomed. Please only donate burnable wood. No painted or treated wood.
Pallets -- Not used for burning, they can be used for temporary shelter on the picket lines should the weather turn bad.
Bread -- We make a lot of sandwiches running a 24/7 operation.
Muffins/Doughnuts -- A nice morning snack
Eggs -- Egg salad sandwiches are the picketers delicacy. Ok, they're inexpensive and easy to make.
Fresh Vegetables -- Make great soups
Coffee -- Always a pleasure

We will pretty much take any donations of food items. If we cannot use them in a timely fashion, we will donate to our members to take home.


Everett Strike Donations - strikejobseverett@iam751.org

Seattle Strike Donations - strikejobsseattle@iam751.org

Auburn Strike Donations - strikejobsauburn@iam751.org

Renton Strike Donations - strikejobsrenton@iam751.org

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Boeing executives say a prolonged strike could wound the company, which is behind schedule on the fuel-saving Dreamliner 787 and has seen high demand ramp up production by 50 percent this year.

I’m all shits and giggles for Boeing. I know in my heart that they think about their workforce the same as the likes of Kongsberg Automotive and American Axle, not a squat.

When fuel prices soared and profits plummeted, the Executives of Continental Airlines did something different, they decided to forego pay.

The virally anti-union JetBlue’s CEO took a 50% pay cut from August to the end of the year and Airtran’s Bob Fornaro opted for a 15% pay cut. Clearly, these are nothing in comparison to the massive pay cuts taken at Continental by CEO Lawrence Kellner and President Jeff Smisek.

With the recent talk of a bailout of Wall Street and the massive salaries for CEO’s, actions like that of Kellner and Smisek are even more out of the ordinary, they are down right singular. That’s one of the reasons I wonder about the current actions of Boeing and their desire to only compensate workers when what they want is to help make Boeing a better company, more profitable and producing a better product. Boeing has a work force dedicated to the success of Boeing.

The union is using the strike to attack the company's relentless outsourcing. In the 2002 contract Boeing won the ability to use non-union suppliers for more parts. The union wants a six-month window where it could bid on work before it is outsourced.

If the Machinists can come up with a proposal and show that we can do it cheaper, better, that quality work is there, we should be able to keep that work in-house," said Local 751A steward Steve Parsley.

Boeing hasn't shown much interest in letting the union make its case. The company complained the union was trying to tell it how to run the business, and instead touted its proposed 11 percent wage boost over three years. Boeing negotiator Doug Kight reportedly called his proposal "the best contract offer in America this year."

Wage increases are great, especially for the worker coming in making $11 an hour, however, it means nothing if you have to pay higher prices for prescriptions and insurance and oh yeah, this one:

Boeing's proposal, however, would… take away the family's right to a pension if a worker dies.

With Boeing hovering at 5 to 7% labor costs per plane produced and…

Aircraft maker Boeing has been groaning under a $275 million backlog of orders for new airplanes that waste less fuel. The company booked a $4.1 billion profit last year, and its principal union, the Machinists (IAM), says Boeing's profits have soared by 828 percent in recent years.

When your workers make you profitable, why is it they can’t share in the success? When things are bad, they take concessions to keep the company afloat, but when things improve and they have made it possible for the company to bring in $4.1 BILLION in profits in 1 year, then then contract that’s offered, the one that’s put forward should take into consideration the sacrifices made to bring the company to this position. I know American Axle and Kongsberg Automotive don’t understand this concept, but if Continental’s CEO and President can get it and sacrifice themselves, then why can’t Boeing figure this out?

Boeing, let me break it down for you:

When you invest in your people, they’ll invest in you. When you’re good to your people, they’re good to you. When YOU sacrifice for your people, they’ll sacrifice for you. But when you screw them with reduced benefits and offer nominal pay increases in the face of massive profits and current substantial backorders, well, don’t expect anything less than a strike, it’s really the only option left on the table for your workers.

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