Union says Boeing strike is about contractors

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

Boeing’s striking workers are on the front line of a battle for job security that’s playing out in workplaces across the country, unionized or not.

At the heart of the scrimmage between the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and Boeing’s management is the growing use of contract workers at factories doing the same jobs as full-time union employees.

“It’s a big deal here. We call it job security,” said Mark Blondin, chief negotiator for the union, in an interview with msnbc.com.

Yes, wages, health care costs and overseas outsourcing are key concerns for Boeing’s workforce and for workers in almost everything industry, from the auto to tech. But many labor advocates see the increase in contract — also known as "contingency" — workers at factories and offices in the good old USA as what could be the final nail in the labor movement’s coffin and a threat to all workers’ livelihood.

“The move to a more casual, more contracting, freelance-type labor force brings freedom and flexibility for workers and companies but at the expense of a safety net and job guarantees. It’s the watering down of job security,” says Dan Cornfield, a labor expert and professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University. “This is the new battleground for the American Dream.”

Indeed, the contingency workforce — including independent contractors, part timers and temporary workers — tend to be paid less, have little or no health insurance or retirement plans, and few if any protections under existing labor laws.

There are about 42 million contingent workers, or about 30 percent of the overall workforce, in the U.S., according to the most recent figures provided by the Government Accountability Office.

This type of contingent labor pool is nothing new when you look back in labor history.

“The model of employment that’s emerging,” explains Cornfield, “is similar to what we had in the early 20th century. We are returning to a pre-New Deal kind of period.”

The use of contract workers gives the employer a great advantage over the workers, says Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif. “We need to turn that around where workers actually receive their share of benefits for the amount of benefit they bring to a company.”

For businesses struggling to stay afloat in a faltering economy, the use of such workers makes sense.

Companies generally are willing to pay higher wages and benefits if they know they have the flexibility to hire contingent workers when needed, says Howard Bernstein, an attorney for Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, who represents employers during union negotiations. “It doesn’t have anything to do with favoring one or the other. They’ve got to have the flexibility when it comes time to bid a job to make good business decisions for the cost and quality of work.”

In the case of Boeing, union leaders have asked for the right to bid against those outside contractors but management has refused to consider the options, according to the Machinist union’s Blondin.

The fear is, he adds, is that union jobs will be lost permanently as more and more contractors pick up work that formerly was handled by union members. Jobs being contracted out at Boeing include maintenance, construction, and delivery and disbursement of inventory on the factory floor.

“Boeing wants to circumvent its unionized workforce, and that doesn’t sit well with our members,” Blondin says. “They don’t like what they’re seeing down the road.”

Boeing management maintains that they need the flexibility to hire whomever they believe would provide the company with the most efficiency.

“The issue is flexibility — the flexibility we need to be able to be productive and efficient, to be successful,” says Tim Healy, a Boeing spokesman.

Some argue that the use of contingency workers actually bolsters job security and gives some workers more choices.

Dianne Durkin, president of corporate consulting firm The Loyalty Factor, says the growth in contracting is not only company-driven. “A lot of people don’t want to work full-time jobs anymore,” she says, pointing to the desire among many baby boomers to scale back their careers.

Tom Mobley, a human resource professor at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University, says for those who want the traditional 9-to-5 job with benefits, “this contingency workforce is protecting you. If everyone were on the payroll, then we’d have to layoff everyone when times are tough.”

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