Boeing Needs to Settle Its Strike — Now
CEO Kelly Ortberg desperately needs to ramp up production, but he can’t do anything until he mollifies angry union members.
Still unhappy.
Photographer: David Ryder/Bloomberg
Kelly Ortberg, the chief executive officer of Boeing Co., on Wednesday morning had his first earnings conference call with analysts, who heard him lay out more details about his plan to return the planemaker to its status as a world-class maker of commercial aircraft. By Wednesday night, the plan had already stalled when a majority of about 33,000 unionized workers turned down the company’s latest contract proposal.
Some 64% of the members of the International Association of Machinists rejected a sweetened offer that would have boosted their pay by 35% over four years and raised the match on their 401(k) retirement plans to 100%. The company agreed to reinstate an annual performance bonus and kicked in signing bonuses. The union also pushed for reinstatement of its defined-benefit pension plan, which Boeing rejected. It’s unclear how much that issue rallied the no vote. Whatever the cause, the offer wasn’t enough to quell the anger among workers and the yearning to take full advantage of Boeing’s weak bargaining position to squeeze more out of the company.