Make Boeing Buckle!

Same bullshit, different day. The latest insulting offer is basically the same as the last and should be thrown in the trash too. It meets none of the demands felt most strongly by Machinists, from restoration of the pension to protections for new hires. The only difference now is District 751 head Jon Holden’s team is “endorsing and recommending” the contract and completely throwing in the towel on the possibility of getting anything better. Don’t get taken in! The strike can still win as long as Machinists hold firm, reject the contract and escalate in a way that can unite the union membership and make Boeing buckle.

Here is the score: Boeing is hurting and primed for a devastating blow that could win what Machinists need fast, strengthen the union and start to turn things around for workers across the country. Holden, though, holds back the strike. From the beginning, he has refused to create real trouble for those he is chummy with: the bosses and their Democratic Party politicians. When CEO Kelly Ortberg said “boo” with the backing of Labor Secretary Julie Su, Holden just rolled over. The Democrats would like nothing more than to force an end to the strike before the presidential elections to give a boost to Kamala Harris, and the IAM leadership was all too happy to help.

Machinists are trapped in a cycle. Ten years ago, Boeing cited financial troubles to threaten to move jobs out of the Puget Sound region to non-union plants. The IAM leadership, in the name of “saving jobs,” acted as Boeing’s agents to help it steal the pension and ram through other concessions, driving a wedge between new hires and senior workers in the process. Today, Boeing claims hardship and engages in the very same blackmail in order to suppress the Machinists’ struggle to restore the pension—and Holden goes for it. Not again!

Even before word of the jobs blackmail leaked, the Holden bureaucracy’s dragging out the strike without any attempt to bring Boeing to its knees had demoralized a section of the union membership, which voted “yes” the last time around. Machinists, however they have voted, know they deserve more, and they could be united around a real fight that has the clear potential to win. But there’s no chance Holden will willingly wage the type of hard fight that’s needed. Paltry strike pay, weak picket lines, abandoning gates, patronizing indoor rallies with backstabbing politicians–all his methods flow from his fundamentally bankrupt strategy of playing by the rules of the bosses and their government. Enough!

It is now or never to break the cycle and win this already. Machinists who want to take the fight to Boeing need to step up now because Holden is not going to. They must rally opposition to the contract, not just by calling for a “no” vote, but also by pointing a way forward, especially with Boeing gearing up to play hardball. They must reassert the basic trade-union principle: picket lines mean don’t cross!

Militant workers, joining together in a strike committee, should agitate on the picket lines to restore this understanding. The unions and their working-class allies must build mass pickets to stop any scabs and coordinate action with the Teamsters and ILWU longshore workers to cut off parts deliveries to Boeing. To ensure workers can be on the picket lines and not at other jobs, struggling to make ends meet, Machinists must demand substantially greater strike pay from the union tops. By shutting down Boeing tight, and denying management the opportunity to work out its supply chain issues and regroup, the union would have a shot at wrapping this up quick.

A fight to establish the union’s dominance would propel non-union Boeing workers to knock at the IAM’s door. Opening a new front in the strike battle by launching a drive to organize the unorganized would greatly strengthen the IAM’s position and stop potential outsourcing dead in its tracks. Boeing and the union leadership would certainly take notice if some striking Machinists were to picket outside Boeing’s non-union North Charleston plant, both to agitate for strike solidarity and to encourage workers there to join the IAM.

Rank-and-file workers, organized jointly, can be the crucial factor to getting the strike on track to victory. The IAM 751 Mobilize! group fought to turn Holden’s recent indoor strike rally into a show of union force on a picket line and agitated for a vote against the last offer. Union militants must build on these exemplary actions, ensure the new offer is rejected and escalate the strike to win!