Last Monday, Boeing’s West Coast factory workers accepted a contract offer, bringing an end to a bitter seven-week strike that has cost the plane-maker over $1 billion dollars.
The 33,000 workers were represented in the negotiations by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). The contract includes a 38% pay rise over four years, a $12,000 ratification bonus, and the reinstatement of an annual bonus scheme.
However, the final contract fell short of the workers’ ambitions. They were pushing for a return to a defined-benefit (DB) pension that they had lost over a decade ago, as well as a 40% pay rise over four years. To overcome these remaining sticking points, Boeing focused on other benefits such as a bump to the company’s contributions for workers’ 401(k) plans and a promise to build its next airplane model in the Seattle area.
IAM Union District 751 announced on Monday that members had voted 59% in favor of the new contract. This is not the boost of confidence that Union leadership would have wanted, especially seeing as 80% of members turned out to vote.
Interestingly, the difference between what Boeing workers wanted and what they received is negligible so why was support amongst union members so low?
First and foremost, the financial context surrounding Boeing as a company gives an insight into why workers felt they could have won more out of the negotiations. Boeing management had no chips left to play with the company reportedly losing $100 million each and every single day that the strike was ongoing. The company has recently been forced to launch a stock offering which could raise $21 billion in order to preserve its credit rating.
The walkout is not Boeing’s only headache given the company has been plagued with malfunctioning issues and safety concerns following a fuselage blowing out of an Alaska Airlines plane earlier this year. As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration recently announced that Boeing would be under close safety review for at least three months. In short, if there was a time for workers to press home their advantage, it’s now.
Boeing has no cards left and with Boeing management reportedly planning to shed 17,000 jobs (10% of its global workforce), the deal seems like a temporary reprieve for workers across the company.
Secondly, the low support for the deal could be seen as a protest vote from members against union leadership. IAM Union District 751 leaders did not have a clear strategy throughout the negotiations, instead pushing members to accept the initial deal of a 25% pay increase over four years.
Members saw through the deal, recognising that it would do little to make up for how much inflation had eaten into their wages and returned to the ballot with 94% voting against the deal. This type of dissent is not normal and marks the first time that members have voted against a deal recommended by their management.
When the most recent deal was finally approved, the union’s lead negotiator John Holden said “this is a victory. We can hold our heads high” but he seemed to have forgotten that the leaders thought it was a victory when the original deal was proposed. The IAM chapter president had described the deal back in August as containing a “historic raise”.
It was not the IAM leaders who persevered and kept protesting at picket fences, enduring disappointing draft deals, and living on measly pay. It was the workers. To claim that for yourself as Holden did, seems at best careless and at worst, negligent.
The misalignment between union members and workers is a broader trend that we are seeing across the aviation space. Members no longer feel that their leaders are reflecting their priorities in negotiations, resulting in protracted discussions with leader-endorsed deals being thrown out once members have gone to the ballot.
For example, Southwest Airlines rejected a Tentative Agreement in December 2023, with 64% of members voting against the proposed five-year deal put forward by the Transport Workers Union Local 556. A similar pattern was seen as Alaska Airlines back in August 2024 with 64% of members rejecting the deal, forcing the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) back to the negotiation table.
The division between union members and leaders is not just seen when tentative deals are open for voting. In the most recent US election, many unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, did not endorse a candidate for president. Why? Not because their members were split but because union leaders tended to support Harris while members overwhelmingly backed Trump. In Florida, despite polls indicating that Teamster members preferred Trump over Harris by 63 percent to 35 percent, every single Teamster council in Florida endorsed Harris anyway.
Another key driver behind the rift between union members and leadership is the waning benefits of being in a union. While union members stay locked in years of fixed contracts with stagnant pay, their non-unionised peers benefit from spontaneous pay rises, receive new compensation, and have access to profit sharing schemes. In September, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants finally secured a pay deal for their members at American Airlines – bringing salaries in line with their peers at non-unionised Delta Air Lines a full two years after Delta set a new industry standard. The Atlanta based carrier then raised salaries again in April this year.
Once the dust has settled on the Boeing negotiations, it would be wise to look closely at unions’ leadership and understand what is driving this growing dissent. Clearly, the lack of leadership strategy, the political mismatch between members and leaders, and the waning benefits of being unionized are all playing a role. The pertinent question that members now need to ask is are union leaders still fulfilling their purpose?
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