Summary
- Senate committee condemns Boeing’s health care cuts.
- Cuts impact thousands of Boeing employees and families.
- Lawmakers criticize reductions amid rising healthcare costs nationally.
Christy Williams, an assembly mechanic, goes on strike outside of Boeing Aerospace, her place of employment in Berkeley, Missouri. In order to obtain higher pay and retirement benefits, she joined 3,200 other International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union members who went on strike at midnight on August 4. (The Missouri Independent/Rebecca Rivas).
During a committee hearing on Wednesday, both Republican and Democratic U.S. senators expressed their indignation over Boeing's decision to deny health care to 3,000 striking employees at its sites in the St. Louis region.
Additionally, they charged that the biggest aerospace corporation in the world had not provided its employees with a fair contract.
Josh Arnold is a St. Louis union member who oversees a Boeing program that provides support for the FA-18 Super Hornets fighter aircraft used by the U.S. Navy.
Arnold, who is also a union shop steward for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837, said the cost difference between the company’s offer and union’s ask is half the cost of one F-15 fighter jet.
“We’re going to blow our shoulders out drilling on titanium for four years to make 96 F-15s,”
Arnold said, noting that they’ll also make a number of other fighter jets, weapons, launch systems and flight simulators.
“We’re saying we’re going to deliver all of that to you. We want a fraction of 1% of one of the programs. And that’s when [the company] said, ‘Cut your health care. Get back to work.’”
Following the hearing on Wednesday afternoon, Boeing revealed a revised settlement offer that reduces some of the terms of the company's initial offer that sparked the Aug. 4 strike. After two days of talks with union negotiators and a federal mediator, the new offer was made.
Hawley claimed during the Senate committee hearing that Boeing's position in the Missouri strike talks is indicative of the firm being "stripmined for parts" from its former self.
“Over the last 30 years, Boeing has transformed from a company known for safety excellence to a company with its safety record in shambles,”
Markey said.
“At the same time, the company, which was once working in partnership with its unions, has turned hostile.”
It "makes you wonder how Boeing can ever expect to restore its safety culture," Markey added, referring to the company's refusal to accept a reasonable contract with striking machinist workers.
“It tells us that they don’t value us,”
Arnold said.
“It tells us that they’re seeking to maximize shareholder value by limiting inputs like wages for laborers. That’s us. We produce the value, but we don’t get any piece of that value, or as little of a piece as they can allow to get by with.”
What legislative actions could restore worker benefits?
This would amend the National Labor Relations Act to strengthen protections for workers who organize and inclusively bargain. It includes measures similar as tripling back pay for unfairly fired workers, allowing private suits for violations, and assessing fiscal penalties on employers who intrude with workers' rights.
This policy would boost stipend, ameliorate food security, and reduce poverty for low- income workers, directly impacting benefits and profitable well- being.
Governments can ordain broader social security schemes to cover all workers, including informal sectors, furnishing benefits similar to health insurance, disability, and survivors' benefits. Further effective penalties for labor law violations and better monitoring can insure employers misbehave with benefit provisions.