By Dan Catchpole
(Reuters) -A strike by machinists at Boeing Defense in St. Louis reached 53 days on Friday, matching last year’s walkout by fellow International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union members in the Northwest who make most of the company's commercial jets.
Last year's strike ended with substantial concessions from Boeing.
This time around, management has refused to significantly improve upon offers already rejected by the roughly 3,200 machinists on strike since August
4 in the St. Louis area. There is no sign of when negotiations will resume, union leaders and the company said.
Boeing faces far less economic pressure than it did during the 2024 strike because the current work stoppage largely affects military programs producing at low rates or still in testing rather than the company's cash-cow 737 jetliner program, AeroDynamic Advisory Managing Director Richard Aboulafia said.
He added that the U.S. government has already paid for much of the equipment and components for fighter jets, reducing the financial sting of parts sitting idle during the stoppage.
“It’s hard to see a pain point for Boeing,” he said. “They’re banking on outlasting the other guy, and they might just get away with it.”
Union leaders say they are prepared to return to bargaining.
For now, members are relying on a mix of $300 a week in strike benefits from the IAM, second jobs, and belt-tightening. The union sent Boeing a contract proposal that members overwhelmingly approved on September 19, according to union officials. Boeing leadership rejected any unilaterally proposed offer, the company told the union.
The company has warned it could hire replacement workers and is reviewing hundreds of applications after a job fair held last week, a spokesperson said.
Operations during the strike: Since the walkout began, Boeing has delivered one F/A-18 and one F-15 and produced 3,120 JDAM bomb-modification kits, Boeing spokeswoman Deborah VanNierop said.
Flight testing continues on the T-7 trainer and the MQ-25 tanker drone, which has completed ground-vibration testing and moved into fuel testing, she added. VanNierop declined to comment on union claims that no new work is being performed on the fighter programs.
Separately, Boeing’s head of labor relations, Michael Fitzsimmons, is leaving to take a similar role at Ford, which announced the move Thursday. His departure will not affect potential negotiations, VanNierop said.
“We’re not coming in here to play games. We’ve got too many people whose lives count on these jobs,” IAM Resident Vice President Jody Bennett said during a press briefing on Tuesday. “Right now, they’re without pay, they’re without insurance, and they’re without certainty of what’s going to happen in their future moving forward.”
(Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle; Editing by David Gregorio)
