SEATTLE (AP) — Workers at Boeing began returning to work on Sunday after members of the machinists union voted to end a costly eight-week strike that clipped profits and stalled deliveries by the company, the world’s second-largest commercial airplane maker.þþEmployees were going back to work at Boeing’s commercial airplane factories, which have been closed since the Sept. 6 walkout. The strike cost an estimated $100 million a day in deferred revenue and production delays on the company’s highly anticipated next-generation passenger jet.þþMembers of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ended their walkout on Saturday by ratifying a new contract with Boeing. Members of the union, which represents about 27,000 workers at plants in Washington State, Oregon and Kansas, voted about 74 percent in favor of the proposal five days after the two sides tentatively agreed to the deal and union leaders recommended its approval.þþ“This contract gives the workers at Boeing an opportunity to share in the extraordinary success this company has achieved over the past several years,” Mark Blondin, the union’s aerospace coordinator and chief negotiator, said in a statement.þþ“It also recognizes the need to act with foresight to protect the next generation of aerospace jobs. These members helped make Boeing the company it is today, and they have every right to be a part of its future,” he said.þþThe union has said the contract protects more than 5,000 factory jobs, prevents the outsourcing of certain positions and preserves health care benefits. It also promises pay increases over four years rather than three, as outlined in earlier offers.þþThe union members, including electricians, painters, mechanics and other production workers, have lost an average of about $7,000 in base pay since the strike began. They had rejected earlier proposals by the company, headquartered in Chicago.þþIt was the union’s fourth strike against Boeing in two decades and its longest since 1995. The union held strikes against Boeing for 24 days in 2005, 69 days in 1995 and 48 days in 1989.þþ“We’re looking forward to having our team back together to resume the work of building airplanes for our customers,” Scott E. Carson, president and chief executive for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement. “This new contract addresses the union’s job security issues while enabling Boeing to retain the flexibility needed to run the business ... and allows us to remain competitive.”þþThe walkout came amid surging demand for Boeing’s commercial jetliners, which include 737s, 747s, 767s and 777s.þþBoeing, which ranks second behind Airbus, has said its order backlog has swollen to a record $349 billion in value.þþThe strike also further postponed the delivery of Boeing’s long-awaited 787 jetliner, which has already been delayed three times, and other commercial planes.þþAs the machinists’ strike wore on, Boeing began talks with another union in hopes of avoiding a second strike by 21,000 scientists, engineers, manual writers, technicians and other hourly workers.þþBoeing officials and representatives of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, which struck for 40 days in 2000, moved into the final phase of contract talks Wednesday. The union’s two current contracts expire on Dec. 1.þþNegotiators at a hotel outside Seattle say they hope to present a proposal to that union’s membership by mid-November.þþ
Source: NY Times
