Boeing workers striking in Everett, Washington
On Monday, union leadership at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) imposed a sell-out agreement on striking Boeing mechanics. According to the IAM, the collective agreement was approved with 59 percent of the vote.
The treaty is a miserable betrayal. It’s essentially the same one workers rejected by 64 percent two weeks ago, just “with an additional three percent increase in pay and a shift in funds between the signing bonus and the 401(k) retirement plan,” according to the Boeing Workers Rank -and-File Committee (BWRFC) on Sunday said as it called on mechanics to reject the collective agreement.
The offer still falls short of workers’ demands for a 40 percent wage increase, improved safety measures, lower health insurance deductibles and, most importantly, the reinstatement of the pension that was stolen from mechanics in 2014.
From the beginning, IAM Local 751 President Jon Holden and the entire IAM bureaucracy have tried to push through a collective bargaining agreement that would “save Boeing from itself” or help restore shareholder profits. after a massive security scandal claimed hundreds of lives. Significantly on Monday evening, Holden declared that workers had “won a victory” that would help “bring this company back to financial success.”
Holden dodged the question of whether Boeing will pursue layoffs of 17,000 workers or 10 percent of its global workforce, saying simply: “Layoffs would be short-sighted.” Undoubtedly, Holden and other officials know that Boeing is planning further cuts. At UPS and the auto industry last year, new collective bargaining agreements touted by the bureaucracy as “major victories” were followed by thousands of layoffs just weeks later.
He also dodged the question of why the IAM supported this interim agreement after officially remaining “neutral” on the second proposal. Holden instead claimed that the IAM is a “democratic union” and that he is “proud of our members.”
In reality, the bureaucracy has continually deliberately disregarded the clear will of the workforce. The first contract, supported by the IAM, only provided for a 25 percent wage increase and the abolition of the annual bonus for workers. When workers expressed outrage at this low offer and rejected it by 95 percent, the union tried to intimidate them by claiming that they were “unlikely to achieve more by striking.”
During Monday night’s press conference, angry workers on the union’s Facebook livestream condemned the bureaucracy with comments such as “rigged,” “sold out” and “spineless union leadership.” Many more comments were deleted by the IAM moderators.
The result is an illegitimate collective agreement that was reached through a corrupt process. The Boeing mechanics received a paltry $250 per week in strike pay from the IAM. The union officials also isolated them from their colleagues at Textron Aviation and Eaton Aerospace, who were fighting at the same time as the Boeing mechanics for virtually the same demands: wage increases above inflation and the pension and health insurance necessary for a secure future.
At Textron, the IAM pushed through a deal that many workers said was worse than the original offer that was overwhelmingly rejected in September. Eaton Aerospace is now hiring scabs to replace striking workers.
As the Boeing Action Committee wrote Sunday, the IAM bureaucracy has acted as “an errand boy for the Boeing board and the government. They ‘negotiated’ this collective bargaining agreement, disregarding the clear message we sent to them just two weeks ago when we rejected the last White House-backed deal by 64 percent.”
The new collective agreement, like the one workers rejected last month, was negotiated by acting Labor Minister Julie Su. The White House’s intervention, particularly the timing of the vote a day before the presidential election, was aimed at quelling growing resistance among the working class that could emerge amid a political civil war after Tuesday’s election. While Trump has drawn up plans to overturn the election results if he loses, Democrats are more concerned that doing so will trigger a movement from below that would also thwart plans to escalate wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The fact that the vote was so close shows how strong the resistance among workers still is. They were not convinced of the quality of the deal, but the IAM and Boeing threatened and blackmailed them. CEO Kelly Ortberg had threatened that any further negotiations would only produce “regressive” collective agreements. The union apparatus shunned these retaliations and threats and loyally repeated management’s statements.
The workers demonstrated their immense social power in the strike. By some estimates, it was the costliest strike of the 21st century in the United States. But like that World Socialist Web Site has emphasized from the beginning, workers can only achieve their demands through their own independent initiative.
The bureaucracy cannot be pressured from below because it is accountable not to workers but to Wall Street and the White House. Instead, workers must organize independently to destroy the authority of the apparatus and transfer power to the workforce.
Boeing’s new collective bargaining agreement only ushers in the next phase of the fight. After the strike ends, management will enforce the previously announced elimination of 17,000 jobs worldwide and more.
Furthermore, the next administration – whoever takes over – will demand “sacrifices” from workers at Boeing, America’s largest exporter and major defense contractor, in the name of the supposed “national interest.” Trillions of dollars earmarked for war are to be squeezed out of the working class.
Boeing workers must continue the fight for workers’ control and establish the Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee as the organizing center of a rebellion against the treasonous bureaucrats, management and the two warring factions of Wall Street.
