Boeing strike ends; Machinists back on the job Sunday

Boeing Machinists voted overwhelmingly today to end their eight-week strike, bringing relief to people around the region affected by the shutdown.

Seventy-four percent voted to end the strike .

As the votes were counted in the evening at the Seattle union hall, a handful of subdued machinists and union officials watched quietly.

It was a far cry from the raucous atmosphere and chants of "Strike, strike, strike!" on the night of Sept. 3 when the Machinists voted to go out.

After 57 days on strike, the first machinists to return will start third shift Sunday, and a large majority will be back at work Monday.

The shutdown of jet production cost Boeing more than $2 billion in profits, Wall Street analysts estimate.

Boeing suppliers in Washington and around the world have laid off workers or slowed production.

And with 25,000 families in the Puget Sound region without paychecks (the 27,000 figure for total people on strike includes Portland, Wichita and California), small businesses here that provide services to Boeing workers have seen revenues plummet.

Machinists streamed into polling places today in Monroe, Auburn and Seattle to vote on the deal hashed out between Boeing and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union in Washington D.C. last week.

The deal provides similar compensation to what was offered before the strike, though extended to four years from three and including a few significant Boeing concessions:

Many lower-paid machinists will get an extra $1 an hour from the deal. All machinists will retain their medical plans with no cost increases. And the union won some limitations on outsourcing of factory work and job protection for 5,000 members delivering parts and maintaining the facilities.

Rob Mosley, 53, said he was one of the minority of machinists who voted to accept the contract offered in September. "I thought it was a poor time to be pushing too much," he said.

Mosley said that unlike many of his workmates, he hadn't saved much in anticipation of a strike. "We've done a lot of cutting corners," he said. And if the strike had continued, he would have had to "pull some strings to make the next mortgage."

He's disappointed the deal reached was not a bigger improvement on the September offer.

"After having been out for 8 weeks, I really hoped it would be considerably stronger," he said.

William Smith, 52, a 30-year Boeing veteran who delivers parts for the 777 in Everett, also voted to end the strike.

Smith said he didn't regret the strike, which he said ensures that working people continue to have a voice.

"Boeing is a good place to work," said Smith, "but make no mistake, it could get worse if we didn't have a voice."

Dennis Warren, 64, voted yes, but added: "It took a lot of soul-searching." .

Warren has been at Boeing 25 years and works in Everett at the 777 "moonshine" shop, a team of highly skilled machinists that develops production equipment and processes to solve problems or increase efficiency.

"Some are complaining that Boeing could have given more," Warren said. "But the mandate from corporate headquarters in Chicago probably wouldn't allow that."

Warren said the strike was worthwhile just for the agreement to mitigate outsourcing of factory work and for the removal of the company proposal to shift some medical costs to employees.

"Those two were deal-breakers," said Warren.

But Bill Forsythe, 50, a tool expediter in Auburn with 12 years of service at Boeing, after some deliberation in the hallway voted to reject the deal and stay on strike.

Although the union won some concessions on job protection from future outsourcing of parts and tool delivery, Forsythe said it didn't go far enough — he would like to see some of the work previously outsourced brought back in-house.

People whose work is far removed from aerospace will be glad to see the strike end. Carol Sluys, owner of Curves, a womens' gym in Arlington, is married to a Boeing machinist, and her business is heavily dependent on Boeing families.

She said she's lost 60 members out of about 500 since the strike started in September, a period when gym membership generally picks up after a slow time in the summer.

The downturn is not all due to the strike, she said, but a combination of the financial crash, the strike and the closure of Meridian Yacht in Arlington, which is set to close by year-end with a loss of nearly 800 jobs.

Sluys said the money she's put into her household with her husband on strike means little left over to put into the gym if things don't pick up.

"I don't think the strike ever should have happened," said Sluys. "It's a dangerous thing to do in this economy."

She said her husband voted to go back to work.

Both Boeing and the union made concessions with regard to how the strike should end.

The union agreed to withdraw charges filed with the Department of Labor alleging unfair bargaining practices by Boeing.

The company agreed to make the strikers whole for all medical costs incurred during the strike as if the company's health plan had continued without interruption. This includes reimbursement of any health-insurance premiums paid to continue coverage and out-of-pocket medical bills.

To allow employees to unwind other commitments they may have made — such as interim jobs — Boeing will give strikers until Nov. 10 to return to work.

The average Machinist base wage for the past year was about $54,000, and with overtime about $65,000.

Extrapolating from data provided previously by Boeing, at the end of the new four-year contract in 2012, the average base annual salary will rise to about $73,000, and with overtime included about $85,000.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com