Anguished Machinists narrowly vote to accept Boeing’s most recent offer on 777X work

Mem­bers of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Machin­ists and Aero­space Work­ers have vot­ed by a nar­row mar­gin to accept the terms of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny’s most recent con­tract exten­sion offi­cer, IAM lead­ers announced tonight in Everett.

By a vote of 51% to 49%, the union agreed to Boe­ing’s terms, with many mem­bers telling reporters and writ­ing on social media sites that they had reluc­tant­ly vot­ed yes. Oth­ers vot­ed no for a sec­ond time, argu­ing that Boe­ing had­n’t real­ly improved its offer since its ear­li­er pro­pos­al to land the 777X work was reject­ed by a two-to-one mar­gin. The lead­er­ship of Lodge 751 did not feel the revised offer mer­it­ed con­sid­er­a­tion, but they were over­ruled by the lead­er­ship at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el, and a vote on the revised offer was sched­uled for today.

“Our mem­bers have spo­ken and this is the course we’ll take,” said Tom Wrob­lews­ki, the pres­i­dent of Machin­ists Union Dis­trict Lodge 751. “All along we knew that our mem­bers want­ed to build the 777X, and that it was in Boeing’s best inter­est to have them do it.. We rec­om­mend­ed that our mem­bers reject the offer because we felt that the cost was too high, in terms of our lost pen­sions and the thou­sands of dol­lars in addi­tion­al health care costs we’ll have to pay each year.

“Now, it’s up to all of us now to pull togeth­er to make this air­plane pro­gram suc­cess­ful. I’m con­fi­dent we will do that, because as we’ve said all along, this is the most-skilled aero­space work­force in the world.”

Wrob­lews­ki reit­er­at­ed that point in an email to members.

Tonight our mem­bers vot­ed to accept Boeing’s pro­pos­al of an eight-year con­tract with an 51% yes vote. Our mem­bers have spo­ken and this is the course we will take.

No mem­ber liked this vote or the posi­tion we were put in by the Com­pa­ny. Nor was it an easy vote for any­one to cast.

We faced tremen­dous pres­sure from every source imag­in­able in decid­ing how to vote today. Politi­cians, the media and oth­ers who had no right to get into our busi­ness, were aligned against us and did their best to influ­ence your vote.

This deci­sion means Boe­ing will stop seek­ing alter­nate sites for its 777X air­craft pro­gram. Our goal in the com­ing years will be to ensure Boe­ing lives up to its com­mit­ments to its work­force and tru­ly keeps jobs in Wash­ing­ton State.

There has been a lot of frus­tra­tion and ten­sion over the last two months. But now the vote is over, and we must unite for our future. It is up to all of us now to pull togeth­er to make this air­plane pro­gram successful.

“Tonight, Wash­ing­ton state secured its future as the aero­space cap­i­tal of the world,” said Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee in a state­ment. “To make that hap­pen, the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Machin­ists Dis­trict 751 took a hard vote that demands the respect of all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who will ben­e­fit from hav­ing Boe­ing build the 777X here.”

He went on to say:

The Machin­ists are our friends, our fam­i­lies, neigh­bors, the best aero­space work­ers in the world and peo­ple who care deeply about their com­mu­ni­ties well beyond the walls of the Boe­ing plant. I want to thank each Machin­ist, no mat­ter how they vot­ed tonight.

With the work the Leg­is­la­ture did in Novem­ber and tonight’s vote, Wash­ing­ton State has shown it is the only place to build this next gen­er­a­tion jet­lin­er. That leg­is­la­tion has impor­tant pro­tec­tions for tax­pay­ers and for Machin­ists and we will make sure the com­pa­ny keeps its com­mit­ment and that these jobs remain in Wash­ing­ton State for the life of the airplane.

We have a his­to­ry of inno­va­tion in our state that has got­ten us to this point today and will chart our future for decades to come.

Fab­ri­ca­tion of the car­bon fiber wing gives us a path to the fore­front of the next gen­er­a­tion of aero­space man­u­fac­tur­ing and the start of a new indus­try for our state.

Tonight, Wash­ing­ton showed the world we can design our future. We look for­ward to see­ing the jet­lin­er of the future take off and help us build a Wash­ing­ton that works for everyone.

We will not be cel­e­brat­ing the out­come of tonight’s vote, unlike some local polit­i­cal lead­ers who have essen­tial­ly been act­ing as tax­pay­er-paid lob­by­ists for Boe­ing. Our broth­ers and sis­ters in the Machin­ists are giv­ing up a lot of hard-won gains, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to deferred pay, in order to secure the 777x work on Boe­ing’s terms. The anguished deci­sion they made is not some­thing we rejoice in, or con­demn. We respect that it was a tough vote either way, and we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all the mem­bers of Lodge 751, regard­less of how they voted.

The Machin­ists were under a tremen­dous amount of pres­sure to cave to Boe­ing… so much so that in the wake of Boe­ing’s dec­la­ra­tion that it was done nego­ti­at­ing, a seri­ous inter­nal rift devel­oped between Lodge 751 and the Inter­na­tion­al lead­er­ship, with the Inter­na­tion­al over­rul­ing Lodge 751 and order­ing a new vote.

It’s worth not­ing that the Machin­ists are a democ­ra­cy and as such, major­i­ty rule pre­vails. Under Tim Eyman’s rules, Boe­ing’s sup­pos­ed­ly “best and final” offer would have been resound­ing­ly reject­ed tonight. Boe­ing pur­ports to be a democ­ra­cy also, but in real­i­ty, its board answers to the com­pa­ny’s well-paid exec­u­tives, and the share­hold­ers do what the board recommends.

Boe­ing Com­mer­cial Air­planes Pres­i­dent and CEO Ray Con­ner applaud­ed the vote.

“Thanks to this vote by our employ­ees, the future of Boe­ing in the Puget Sound region has nev­er looked brighter,” Con­ner said in a state­ment. “We’re proud to say that togeth­er, we’ll build the world’s next great airplane—the 777X and its new wing – right here. This will put our work­force on the cut­ting edge of com­pos­ite tech­nol­o­gy, while sus­tain­ing thou­sands of local jobs for years to come.”