57,000 Workers Strike Boeing in 7 States; Seek Bigger Share of Record Prosperity

SEATTLE —  More than 57,000 production workers in seven states struck the Boeing Co. shortly after midnight Wednesday, demanding a bigger share of the company’s record prosperity. The walkout threatens further production delays at the world’s biggest aerospace firm.

The striking members of the International Assn. of Machinists, 43,300 of whom work in the Seattle area, took to the picket lines shortly after midnight after overwhelmingly voting to reject Boeing’s last contract offer.

The strikers make up about a third of Boeing’s worldwide work force of 144,725. About 106,000 of the Boeing workers are based in western Washington.

Some Work Continues

While pickets formed rings around Boeing plants from Seattle to Wichita, Kan., to Portland, Ore., supervisors and nonstriking workers--including engineers and white-collar workers, who are represented by other unions--attempted to continue production. Industry analysts said the strike would not make an economic dent in Boeing for two to three weeks because supervisors can finish some nearly completed planes with parts on hand.

No talks were scheduled. Federal mediator Douglas Hammond, who joined the talks over the weekend, said he wanted negotiations to resume quickly because of the number of people affected and the potential impact of a long strike at Boeing, Washington’s largest private employer.

Boeing spokesman Paul Binder said the company’s latest offer is “a negotiating position. It’s not a take-it-or-leave-it.” He said it was likely a federal mediator would be asked to supervise talks when they are scheduled.

The Boeing strike is being watched closely by labor and management experts.

Aerospace is one of organized labor’s last strongholds, and after disappointing experiences in auto, aviation and mining strikes this year, “organized labor just can’t afford to lose at Boeing,” said Dan Lacey, an author of several labor-management books.

The issues behind the strike are also clear-cut. While many labor disputes have featured companies that plead poverty against union demands, the Boeing dispute pits a rich company against a union that has not received an increase in its base wage since 1982 and contends that Boeing is obligated to make up for past years.

Like many companies, Boeing has attempted to replace annual increases in the base-wage--which is the standard for determining pensions and other benefits--with annual lump-sum bonuses.

These bonuses have proven popular with some younger workers but are regarded by union leaders as a devious way of avoiding long-term company costs.

Boeing’s last offer, made during negotiations in Palm Springs, includes base-wage increases of 4% this year, 3% in 1990 and 3% in 1991. It also includes annual bonuses of 8% of a worker’s gross earnings this year and 3% the next.

Boeing paid bonuses of 12% in 1986 and 5% in 1987 and 1988.

For the average machinist making $13.39 per hour, the new offer would mean an additional $13,800 in income over the next three years.

But union officials said Boeing--which earned $614 million last year on sales of $17 billion and posted a 20% gain in net income in the first six months of this year--can afford far more.

Union spokesman Jack Daniels refused to specify what the union is demanding, saying “it doesn’t behoove us to bandy that figure about in public.” He said the union had requested that the federal mediator step in, but there has been no response from Boeing.

“I think Boeing will show about two weeks’ face-saving silence,” Daniels said. “Two or three weeks they can afford.”

Daniels said approximately 400 pickets were working four-hour shifts around the clock at the entrances to Boeing plants, which stretch across a 50-mile area of the Puget Sound from Everett to Auburn.

Pickets in groups of three were holding signs in evening rain Wednesday along the thoroughfare surrounding Boeing Field just south of downtown Seattle.

The machinists last struck Boeing in 1977 for two months.

The strike hits a company struggling to meet delivery schedules in the midst of its fifth consecutive year of record jetliner orders.

Airlines and leasing companies striving to replace their aging fleets and meet a surge in passenger traffic have ordered 736 planes worth $38.5 billion so far this year. Although Pentagon cutbacks have reduced military business, Boeing’s commercial division has a backlog of nearly 1,600 jets worth about $70 billion, with deliveries extending into the mid-1990s.

The Boeing strike also is being watched closely by other aerospace companies that have traditionally used Boeing’s contract as a trend-setter.

The machinist union has a strike fund of about $90 million and will dole out benefits of $100 per week for each striker starting in the third week of the strike, according to union officials.

Bob Baker reported from Los Angeles and Tamara Jones from Seattle.