Boeing Machinists Stay On Job

A strike vote by The Boeing Co.'s largest union failed, meaning the company's latest offer to employees was automatically approved.

Leaders of the Machinists union had urged members to approve the strike, saying they had grave concerns about job security. Sixty-one percent of the members voted in favor of the walkout, short of the 67 percent necessary.

"It puts a pit in my stomach. We've just voted to lay our selves off," Machinists shop steward Chris Craft told CBS Radio News in Seattle.

The union represents 25,000 workers in Washington state; Wichita, Kan.; and Portland, Ore. It held the vote Thursday and Friday, and announced the results Friday night, less than an hour after workers at a Boeing helicopter plant in suburban Philadelphia walked out.

Striking workers at Boeing's suburban Philadelphia helicopter plant blocked nonunion workers from entering the plant's main gate Saturday after walking off the job for the first time in 28 years.

The employees at the Ridley Township plant, best known for assembly of the V-22 Osprey, went on strike after contract talks failed to produce agreement by a midnight deadline.

Company officials met with negotiators for Local 1069 of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America for three-hours Friday night, but no agreement was reached covering the plant's approximately 1,400 workers.

No new talks had been scheduled as of Saturday afternoon.

The machinists union had voted on two questions: whether to approve Boeing's contract offer, made Aug. 27, and whether to strike. Some 62 percent of the union's members voted to reject the contract, but union bylaws dictate that unless two-thirds of members vote to strike, a contract offer is automatically accepted.

Members said the key sticking point was job security - an especially sensitive point this past year. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, which devastated the airline industry, Boeing slashed production and announced it would lay off 30,000 workers.

The layoffs claimed 25 percent of the union's membership.

The Machinists had been working without a contract since Sept. 1, when the previous three-year agreement expired. The average wage under the old contract was about $50,000 a year.

The new contract includes an 8 percent ratification bonus; wage increases of 2 percent and 2.5 percent in the second and third years; and a 20 percent boost in monthly pension payments by the third year.

The contract increases health care costs for many employees. But the biggest concerns for union leaders were what they described as attacks on job security. Boeing refused to tie employment levels to aircraft deliveries or other indicators of the industry's health.

The contract includes provisions that let outside vendors deliver their work directly to the factory - bypassing workers in shipping and receiving and other Machinist jobs.

The company said the change would affect only about 260 people and that there would be no direct layoffs, but the union remained skeptical.

According to the union, a strike would cost members some $28.1 million in pay each week, with the majority of the damage in the Puget Sound region.