SEATTLE: A strike at Boeing “could go on for a while” as workers are confident they can get bigger wage increases and an improved pension, union leader Jon Holden said in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) on Saturday.
More than 30,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), who produce Boeing’s top-selling 737 MAX and other jets in the Seattle and Portland, began a strike on Friday after overwhelmingly voting down a new contract.
Boeing and union negotiators are due to return to the bargaining table next week, in talks overseen by US federal mediators, after more than 94 percent of workers voted to reject an initial contract offer that Holden had endorsed.
Holden said the priorities for his members were a bigger wage increase and the restoration of a defined-benefit pension scheme that the IAM lost during a previous round of negotiations with Boeing a decade ago.
“We have the most leverage and the most power at the most opportune time that we’ve ever had in our history, and our members are expecting us to use it,” Holden told NPR.
“I know that our members are confident. They’re standing shoulder to shoulder and they’re ready. So it (the strike) could go on for a while.”
The initial deal included a 25 percent pay rise spread over four years and a commitment by Boeing to build its next commercial jet in the Seattle region, if the plane program was launched within the four-year period of the contract.
Union members, venting frustration at years of stagnant wages and rising living costs, said removal of a performance bonus in the Boeing offer would erode half of the headline salary increase.
Boeing’s stock fell 3.7 percent on Friday. It has tumbled almost 40 percent so far this year, slashing the company’s market value by roughly $58 billion
A long strike could further damage Boeing’s finances, already groaning due to a $60 billion debt pile. A lengthy pause on plane production would also weigh on airlines that fly Boeing jets and suppliers that manufacture parts.
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Boeing strike could drag on as workers push for higher wages, union leader says
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Boeing strike could drag on as workers push for higher wages, union leader says
- More than 30,000 workers who produce Boeing’s top-selling 737 MAX and other jets began a strike on Friday
- Negotiators from both sides are due to return to the bargaining table next week, in talks overseen by US federal mediators
Russia puts death toll from Ukrainian strike on occupied village at 27. Kyiv rejects accusation
Russian authorities said Friday that the death toll from a Ukrainian drone strike they said struck a café in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region rose to 27 people. Kyiv denied attacking civilian targets.
Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman of Russia’s main criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, said in a statement that a Ukrainian drone strike on a café and hotel in the village of Khorly, where at least 100 civilians were celebrating New Year’s Eve overnight into Thursday, killed 27 people, including two minors. A total of 31, including five minors, were hospitalized with injuries.
A criminal probe on the charges of carrying out an act of terrorism has been opened, Petrenko said.
Kyiv denied attacking civilians. Spokesman of Ukraine’s General Staff, Dmytro Lykhovii, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne on Thursday that Ukrainian forces “adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law” and “carry out strikes exclusively against Russian military targets, facilities of the Russian fuel and energy sector, and other lawful targets.”
Lykhovii said that General Staff has published an explicit list of targets that the Ukrainian army struck on the night of New Year’s Eve. The list did not include strikes on occupied parts of the Kherson region.
Lykhovii noted that Russia has repeatedly used disinformation and false statements to disrupt the ongoing peace negotiations.
The Associated Press could not independently verify claims made about the attack.
Russia’s accusations against Ukraine come amid a US-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Moscow alleged that Kyiv launched a long-range drone attack against a residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in northwestern Russia overnight from Sunday to Monday.
Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Putin’s residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have ramped up in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.
In his New Year’s address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a peace deal was “90 percent ready” but warned that the remaining 10 percent, believed to include key sticking points such as territory, would “determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, how people will live.”
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday that he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process.”
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia conducted what local authorities called “one of the most massive” drone attacks at Zaporizhzhia overnight.
At least nine Russian drones struck the city, damaging dozens of residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure, head of the regional administration, Ivan Fedorov, wrote on Telegram on Friday. There were no casualties, the official said.
Overall, Russia fired 116 long-range drones at Ukraine last night, according to Ukraine’s Air Force, which said that 86 drones were intercepted, while 27 more have reached their targets.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported Friday that its air defenses intercepted 64 Ukrainian drones overnight over multiple Russian regions.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, on Friday also accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out a missile strike on the city of Belgorod. Two women were hospitalized with injuries, Gladkov said. The strike shattered windows in multiple residential buildings and damaged an unspecified “commercial” facility and a number of cars, according to the official.
Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman of Russia’s main criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, said in a statement that a Ukrainian drone strike on a café and hotel in the village of Khorly, where at least 100 civilians were celebrating New Year’s Eve overnight into Thursday, killed 27 people, including two minors. A total of 31, including five minors, were hospitalized with injuries.
A criminal probe on the charges of carrying out an act of terrorism has been opened, Petrenko said.
Kyiv denied attacking civilians. Spokesman of Ukraine’s General Staff, Dmytro Lykhovii, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne on Thursday that Ukrainian forces “adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law” and “carry out strikes exclusively against Russian military targets, facilities of the Russian fuel and energy sector, and other lawful targets.”
Lykhovii said that General Staff has published an explicit list of targets that the Ukrainian army struck on the night of New Year’s Eve. The list did not include strikes on occupied parts of the Kherson region.
Lykhovii noted that Russia has repeatedly used disinformation and false statements to disrupt the ongoing peace negotiations.
The Associated Press could not independently verify claims made about the attack.
Russia’s accusations against Ukraine come amid a US-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Moscow alleged that Kyiv launched a long-range drone attack against a residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in northwestern Russia overnight from Sunday to Monday.
Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Putin’s residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have ramped up in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.
In his New Year’s address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a peace deal was “90 percent ready” but warned that the remaining 10 percent, believed to include key sticking points such as territory, would “determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, how people will live.”
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday that he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process.”
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia conducted what local authorities called “one of the most massive” drone attacks at Zaporizhzhia overnight.
At least nine Russian drones struck the city, damaging dozens of residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure, head of the regional administration, Ivan Fedorov, wrote on Telegram on Friday. There were no casualties, the official said.
Overall, Russia fired 116 long-range drones at Ukraine last night, according to Ukraine’s Air Force, which said that 86 drones were intercepted, while 27 more have reached their targets.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported Friday that its air defenses intercepted 64 Ukrainian drones overnight over multiple Russian regions.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, on Friday also accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out a missile strike on the city of Belgorod. Two women were hospitalized with injuries, Gladkov said. The strike shattered windows in multiple residential buildings and damaged an unspecified “commercial” facility and a number of cars, according to the official.
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