About 3,200 workers at three Boeing facilities in Missouri and Illinois plan to strike on Monday over a contract dispute.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said in a statement on Sunday that the strike would involve its members at Boeing’s plants in St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and Mascoutah in Illinois.
These facilities build and maintain the US military’s F-15 Eagle, the F/A-18 Hornet, and some missile technologies.
Boeing’s St. Louis facility, as the company’s primary military aircraft manufacturing hub, is also expected to be a central site for building the new sixth-generation F-47 fighter.
“IAM District 837 members build the aircraft and defense systems that keep our country safe,” IAM’s Midwest Territory general vice president, Sam Cicinelli, said in the statement. “They deserve nothing less than a contract that keeps their families secure and recognizes their unmatched expertise.”
Last week, the union members said they could not reach an agreement on a four-year contract with Boeing before their previous terms expired on July 27. Now, they said the strike will proceed after a seven-day cooling-off period.
Boeing said in a statement to the media that the company was “prepared for a strike” and had arranged a contingency plan to continue work at its facilities with non-union staff.
“We’re disappointed our employees rejected an offer that featured 40% average wage growth and resolved their primary issue on alternative work schedules,” said Dan Gillian, vice president and general manager of Boeing’s air dominance division and a senior executive at its St. Louis facility.
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Boeing faced a far larger strike in the fall of last year, which involved 30,000 of its machinists in the northwestern US who rejected their labor contract. That strike lasted seven weeks and ended in early November.
In an earnings call last Tuesday, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg downplayed the effects of this month’s impending strike, saying its scale was “much, much less” than last year’s.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about the implications of the strike. We’ll manage our way through that,” Ortberg said.
Still, the strike is yet another challenge for Boeing, which is trying to turn around its reputation in the years after two of its 737 Max passenger airliners crashed — one in 2018 and another in 2019.
More recently, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flown by Air India crashed in June, killing all but one of at least 242 people on board and another 19 people on the ground.
On Friday, four flight attendants filed a lawsuit against Boeing over a 737 Max incident in January 2024, when a door plug blew out midflight. The attendants, who were on board the Alaska Airlines flight, said they received mental and physical injuries.
