I would say it's extremely misleading. If a friend told you they got a 35% pay raise at work, wouldn't you assume it was instantaneous / for that year? I can't help but think people will read this and think "Those workers won't take a 35% pay raise? They are so greedy!".
"Winning" for Boeing would be workers being happy with status quo and nothing changes. "Winning" for the workers means getting a deal people vote "yes" for (last proposal was rejected by 64% of the voters). Not sure how this is so complicated for some.
Seems they're getting closer, previous proposal was rejected by 95% of the workers, so seems it's going in the right direction at least. If Boeing wants to stop loosing money at the rate they're currently doing, they better come up with a acceptable deal quickly.
It wasn't the unions that prioritized shareholder value over everything else for the last few decades. Saying they were along for the ride is accurate but don't forget there is a serious difference in power between the csuite and everyone else.
Gonna be interesting to see if this ends up true or not :) In the end, there won't be a Boeing if no one wants to work there, and no one is gonna want to work there if you can't sustain your own life on what you get from working there.
The Boeing employees aren't either, it's 8-9% over multiple years.
Additionally, this makes it seem like you are implying, "They are getting something that others aren't, so they should be happy and take it.". IMHO the takeaway should be, "The union has got them a much deserved raise, more Americans who are being underpaid should join a union to get fair compensation.".
Fair enough, but you're not doing yourself any favors by being self-destructive. In fact I think the nature of self-destruction means you're hurting yourself.
If you think 8% is outrageous for them, why not demand more for yourself? Instead of kneecapping people you don't even know out of a somewhat pathetic need to feel adequate, why not simply match them? Then, you won't have to look up to people you feel are beneath you.
> If you think 8% is outrageous for them, why not demand more for yourself? Instead of kneecapping people you don't even know out of a somewhat pathetic need to feel adequate, why not simply match them
So, to hell with it and sink the ship you're on to spite the captain? I think you can fight those fights when you get through the storm not while you're in the eye of it.
I have not sympathy for management, but this move is cutting off their noses to spite their faces. It's not symbiotic.
Obviously management have been absolute bastards in managing the company almost to the point of bankruptcy, but it would be foolhardy to add insult to injury and speed up the company's demise --which it can only blame itself for.
If I were the union, rather than ask for large raises at inopportune times, I would ask for veto power in the Board to overrule stupid moves like the 737-MAX fiasco. This would save jobs and provide more opportunity for profits and raises.
It is impossible to know for outsiders if the demands are fair or not, without historic details.
Boeing will blame the workers at least partially when they file bankrupcy. At least other companies will take workers more seriously.
Historic example: Banana companies in poor countries were terrible. Lives and environment were destroyed in exchange for years of explotation. It was not fair for the workers. Absolutely without a doubt in retrospective
The workers always lose, but without a fight the situation doesn't improve for them.
If only there was a way for those Americans to band together for leverage against their bosses to demand better pay. Maybe we could even pass some laws protecting their right to do so.
> "Winning" for the workers means getting a deal people vote "yes" for
This is also what "winning" means for Boeing, they don't want machinists striking forever. Both parties obviously just want an agreement that both parties will say "yes" to
> If Boeing wants to stop loosing money at the rate they're currently doing, they better come up with a acceptable deal quickly.
Again, the same goes for the other party here. The one Boeing proposed seems acceptable to me, but I guess the machinists are free to reject whatever they want and propose whatever they want in response. I'm genuinely curious what they even want, aside from the pension plan they obviously won't get.
Not really, the workers are loosing money since Boeing is refusing to come up with an acceptable deal, the reason for the strike in the first place is because they weren't paid enough for the job they're doing.
> The one Boeing proposed seems acceptable to me
Are you a machinist working for Boeing? I'm guessing you, like most of us, are involved in software one way or another, and it's seems hard in general for people to empathize with blue-collar workers unless you've been one yourself.
> I'm genuinely curious what they even want, aside from the pension plan they obviously won't get.
TLDR from the initial demands:
- 40% raise
- Reinstate the defined benefit pension plan they lost a decade ago
- Higher contributions to employee 401k retirement funds
Seems like it's pretty well known what the workers want, yet Boeing still puts forward proposals that don't meet the demands. And besides that, Boeing shared the last proposal to the media for even approaching the workers with it. Not sure what they're thinking.
> the workers are loosing money since Boeing is refusing to come up with an acceptable deal
Right, I believe that is what I said: both Boeing and the machinists are losing money because both Boeing and the machinists are refusing to come up with a mutually acceptable deal.
> I'm genuinely curious what they even want, aside from the pension plan they obviously won't get.
TLDR from the initial demands
I know what the initial demands of both Boeing and the machinists were, and now that they've both announced their initial demands, we move on to both parties compromising.
Surely neither party thinks they'll get everything they want at the expense of the other party? That's no recipe for a working compromise. Like do the machinists actually think companies can afford pension plans for everybody? Have the machinists done the math on that?
Honestly, it feels weird asking 1 former employer to take on the responsibility for guaranteeing a decades-long retirement. That responsibility should fall to individuals and/or governments. I view the role of employers as paying workers to work, with both parties being able to terminate the deal by leaving, and with both parties keeping what they accrued during the deal.
> Right, I believe that is what I said: both Boeing and the machinists are losing money because both Boeing and the machinists are refusing to come up with a mutually acceptable deal.
What I'm trying to say:
- If there was no strike, the workers would continue to lose money, this was the status quo before the strike
- If there is a strike with no resolution, both Boeing and workers lose money, but workers would lose them anyways (see the line item above)
- If there is a strike with a resolution favoring Boeing, workers continue to lose money, Boeing stops losing money
- If there is a strike with a resolution favoring the workers, workers stop losing money, Boeing stops losing money
To me, the ideal situation (for the human individuals involved) seems pretty clear.
> Like do the machinists actually think companies can afford pension plans for everybody? Have the machinists done the math on that?
Isn't the free market supposed to magically work this out somehow? The workers and the union made the calculations on how much they need to be able to have a reasonable salary. If Boeing can't pay that, Boeing is doing business wrong somehow. At least this is the common "free market" Americans like to throw around.
To clarify, these are the elaborated, corrected points:
- If there was no strike, the workers would continue to make money (albeit less than they would like), and Boeing would continue to lose money, this was the status quo before the strike
- If there is a strike with no resolution, both Boeing and workers lose money, but Boeing would lose anyways (see the line item above)
- If there is a strike with a resolution favoring Boeing, workers continue to make money (albeit less than they would like), Boeing would probably keep losing money
- If there is a strike with a resolution favoring the workers, workers continue to make money (albeit less than they would like), Boeing continues losing money
> Isn't the free market supposed to magically work this out somehow? The workers and the union made the calculations on how much they need to be able to have a reasonable salary. If Boeing can't pay that, Boeing is doing business wrong somehow.
Boeing and the workers both calculated what they each want. If you believe that a failure to come to a negotiated agreement constitutes "doing business wrong", then both parties are guilty of "doing business wrong". Personally, I don't.
Yeah, I dunno. They are asking for raises at the worst time for the manufacturer. They should do this when the company is running on all cylinders --then they can strike and have leverage and not "shoot themselves in the foot".
It's like if you are a prehistoric hunter and you ask yourself while injured and vulnerable to bag your biggest most arduous prey. I'd save that for a healthy day and today just catch something to live for tomorrow.
Only if you're unwilling to understand why. I'm neutral so far and the BBC article conveniently doesn't give any details on why the offer was rejected. It's perfect for painting the people on strike in a bad light.
- Reinstate the defined benefit pension plan they lost a decade ago
- Higher contributions to employee 401k retirement funds
Boeing knows this, the workers know this, the media knows this and the public knows this. Yet Boeing plays dumb and proposes deals that fall short of the demands. Boeing could stop the strike whenever they want, if they had some sort of semblance of empathy for their employees.
Negotiation can also be boneheaded and incredibly stupid. I went to a car dealer who was asking me for $4k over their own advertised KBB value (this was before covid too). I countered with $1.5k over their own advertised value. He insisted "we can't possibly go lower" than the list price. So I noped out of there.
Months later he texted me out of the blue and offered me the same price minus $600. That car sat on their lot for years.
Not all offers should be considered valid. Sometimes, an offer in negotiation is clearly, plainly, an insult to your intelligence.
It seems Boeing already offered all this, save for the defined benefit plan, which obviously won't happen, and a 5% difference in the raise, from "extremely large raise" to "ridiculously large raise".
What compromise has the union offered from their own initial demands? They could stop the strike anytime they want.
Thank you for asking a good faith question. To answer, I've provided a couple of links below, but the tl;dr is that they're unaffordable for companies, and as a result have become an anachronism. Boeing specifically was already losing billions before the strike, so has a negative ability to give more, much less increase their 60+ billion dollar unfunded pension liabilities with new generations they'll have to keep paying for another half century.
Notably, the question I asked before yours, was also in good faith. I answered yours first as a further show of good faith, but the question that now must be addressed is: What compromise has the union offered from their own initial demands?
The union had already compromised, and if Boeing has unfunded pension liabilities, why in the fuck were they doing stock buybacks? Unfunded pension liabilities = undelivered compensation for people who have already worked for you.
What in the Sam is wrong with this bloody country man? Does anything actually bloody work?
I know, I totally support Boeing selling their buyback'd stock, even if it tanks the stock price (executive compensation be damned), and using the proceeds to account for a portion of their unfunded pension liabilities.
Even if they did that, though, I don't think it would cover their current pension liabilities, much less new ones which will continue to grow for decades.
Thanks for the links, that does indeed seem to support your assertion.
I don't know enough about this dispute in general to offer opinion on what any party has or hasn't done though, so anything I have to say about the union representing Boeing workers would just be noise in the conversation.
> and a 5% difference in the raise, from "extremely large raise" to "ridiculously large raise".
Sorry, but we've had a large run of inflation _and_ we have no idea what kind of raises they've had in the recent past. Have they had cost of living raises, or nothing from the last 5 years so they need to catch up? There is always more context than can fit in a single sentence.
The benefits weren't "stopped", they were swapped out to something that's really a better model for everyone. Defined benefits plans are very hard to administer and they often fail when the investments don't deliver. At least defined contributions are more transparent for everyone.
You left out where I specified the pension. They were stopped.
I personally prefer a 401k - it enables greater career mobility, but also requires greater knowledge and planning by the employee.
In an area or industry with few comparable employers, they might not value that flexibility as highly. They’re allowed to negotiate for the retirement plan they want.
After all that is just 1% difference. And put to those term, doesn't seem that big considering the felt inflation rates in various goods...