I’ve been too busy writing about the Machinist union contract talks to seriously blog about it, but yesterday’s salvo from the IAM bargaining team http://www.iam751.org/contract2005/update824.htm has made some headlines outside the region.
Bloomberg News http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a.nwnMoMjRcY&refer=us talked with Everett mechanic David Clay, who has been an outspoken critic of IAM leadership in the past.
Key Quote: “The union’s statement may not signal talks are faltering, Clay added. ‘A lot of the stuff that precedes the contract is theater,’ he said.”
In Chicago, Boeing executives who read Crain’s Chicago Business got this story from Reuters, http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=17560 which notes that…
Key Quote: “Strong demand for Boeing’s jets, including the single-aisle 737 favored by low-cost carriers from Dallas to New Delhi, gives the union an unusually strong hand in the talks, analysts say.”
Meanwhile, Boeing workers reading the The Wichita Eagle and the King County Journal both made do with this Associated Press story. http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/state/12466650.htm
Key Quote: “Both sides said they would continue talking before a final contract offer is made. The contract expires Sept. 2, and Boeing has pledged to give a best and final offer by Aug. 30.”
Here’s my story from today’s paper: http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/08/25/100loc_boeing001.cfm
Key Quote: “The union said it was preparing a counterproposal. Boeing’s lead negotiator, Jerry Calhoun, issued a statement saying the company will ‘consider and respond to (that) with the same spirit of give-and-take that we have approached these negotiations from the outset.’”
In the story I also quoted a first-shift worker who, like Clay, said the response to the union bargaining team’s rejection of the company’s first offer was low-key.
Key Quote 2: “There’s very few people who are saying ‘strike’ right now,” (Patti) Cline said. “We still have almost a week.”
However, one worker I heard from this morning says the attitude on second shift is far more militant: “The employees are rabidly screaming strike,” he said. “Yesterday at 6 p.m., almost the entire second shift walked the plant screaming ‘Strike!!!!!!’”
And this afternoon I’m hearing that some first-shift folks are going out tonight to lay down some green tape in front of one of the gates at Boeing’s Everett plant. This is a symbolic thing: Boeing paints a green line along the edge of its property during labor strife, and any picketers crossing that line are subject to arrest. Boeing usually puts down the paint in the days prior to a contract vote, but in this case, it’s the union that’s drawing a line on the asphalt, literally and metaphorically.
Here are a couple of columns I’ve done in the past two weeks analyzing some of the issues for the Machinists:
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/08/17/100bus_corliss001.cfm
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/08/24/100bus_corliss002.cfm
And here’s Boeing’s Web site where Human Resources VP Jerry Calhoun, the lead negotiator, updates managers daily: http://www.boeing.com/special/negotiations/
Stay tuned.
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