Remember how a couple weeks ago Boeing’s machinists rejected the company’s last best only contract offer to build the new 777X in Everett, and Boeing announced that it would not return to the negotiating table, and instead request bids from other (mostly non-union) regions? And remember how all the serious people who’ve never lifted a wrench in their lives yet know what’s good for Boeing machinists better than Boeing machinists do, sighed in unison that even a job with lower pay and no pension is better than no job at all, and then cursed the short sightedness of union members for not caving to the company’s demands?
Yeah, well, Boeing is back at the negotiating table after all, because maybe the machinists aren’t as stupid as the serious people presume them to be. Because maybe Puget Sound Boeing workers have a little leverage being the best-trained and most productive aerospace workforce in the world, working at existing facilities that would take billions of dollars and several years to reproduce elsewhere? And maybe they understand Boeing better than casual outside observers do, no matter how serious these observers believe themselves to be?
Not saying that this is a done deal or anything. Boeing and the machinists still might not be able to come to terms. But this idea that the machinists were powerless to do anything but accept management’s initial offer was just plain stupid. And suicidal from the perspective of what’s left of our nation’s labor movement.