3 November, 2008After 57 days of strike action, 27,000 IAM members in the U.S. return to work.
USA: Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) voted by 74 per cent to ratify a new 4-year contract with Boeing Company. A tentative agreement was reached on Oct. 27 after five days of intense bargaining in Washington, DC.
The new agreement covers 27,000 IAM members, including electricians, painters, mechanics, and other production workers at Boeing facilities in Washington, Oregon, Kansas and California.
Contract gains include:
- general wage increases of 15 percent over the life of the agreement;
- pension increases;
- a lump sum payment of 10 percent of the previous year's earnings or $5,000, whichever is greater;
- contract language to protect thousands of jobs at risk in the material handling classification; and
- unchanged health care costs.
IAM members went on strike on September 6, 2008. The walkout was the union's longest in 13 years and the fourth at Boeing in 20 years.
"We warned Boeing when the strike began that when they take on the IAM, they take on the world's metalworkers", said IAM International President R. Thomas Buffenbarger. "The many letters and other expressions of international solidarity that our members received during the strike proved it. "
Boeing, a leading manufacturer of commercial airplanes, posted a record profit of $4 billion last year and has a reported $300 billion worth of commercial plane orders in its books.