Boeing machinists go on strike

“If the company wants to talk, they can call me,” Mark Blondin, president of Seattle-based Machinists District Lodge 751, said after announcing 86 percent approval for the strike authorization on Thursday.

Union leaders were unwilling to provide actual vote tallies for the strike authorization. But had members fallen short of the two-thirds vote needed to strike, the contract would automatically have taken effect.

Company officials earlier said they feared a strike would send customers to competitors, notably rival Airbus SAS, and questioned whether the commercial operations could ever recover.

Bickers said after the strike vote that the Chicago-based company could continue to do other work, such as designing new aircraft, but that there was no way to build planes without those workers.

Union leaders said the contract offer fell short on top issues including pension payments and increased health care costs. District Lodge 751 is negotiating for employees in all three states, although some terms differ based on location.

The union last went on strike in 1995, when workers walked out for 69 days. The vote to strike again Thursday was greeted with cheers by union members.

Larry Weckhorst, a 16-year Boeing veteran who lives in SeaTac, said he knew the strike was coming because “the mood was just different from three years ago” when the Machinists accepted what they considered a sub-par contract because of the airline industry’s dismal state after the 2001 attacks.

Now “the production rates are going up, the stock price is going up,” the 47-year-old said, adding, “That pension (issue) is huge. Look at how old our work force is.”

The Machinists average 49 years of age. The company offered a 10 percent pension increase — $66 per month for every year worked, up from $60 currently. The union said that fell short of what its workers deserve.

The union also was critical of increased health care costs and a proposal to eliminate retiree medical benefits for workers hired after July 2006, with the exception of laid-off workers who are recalled.

For about 900 union-represented workers in Wichita, the company offered no general wage increase but a one-time payout of $2,800, which would have increased to $4,200 for employees who chose to deposit the money in the Boeing 401(k)-type retirement account.

Workers represented in the talks now receive an average of $59,000 a year. The company had said they would earn about $62,500 a year by the end of the new contract, excluding overtime and other extra payouts.

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