Transportation

Boeing Supplier’s Labor Vote Puts 737 Output Hike at Risk

  • Struggling Spirit AeroSystems, union at odds on new contract
  • Vote this month could also affect A220 program at Airbus

Boeing 737 fuselage on the Spirit AeroSystems production line in Kansas.

Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
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Boeing Co.’s largest supplier is racing to avoid a potentially crippling strike, a disruption that would jeopardize the US planemaker’s effort to hike production of its cash-cow 737 jetliners.

Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. is preparing to make a so-called best-and-final offer this week to about 6,000 unionized employees at its Wichita, Kansas, home base. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers plan a June 21 vote on the proposal and, depending on the outcome, could go on strike at midnight on June 24.