Boeing factory workers to strike after rejecting pay contract

About 30,000 workers in Seattle and Portland areas will walk off the job, posing a challenge for new CEO Kelly Ortberg

Reading Time:2 minutes

Workers walk out of the Boeing manufacturing facility in Renton, Washington, on September 12. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 1:39pm, 13 Sep 2024Updated: 3:01pm, 13 Sep 2024

Boeing’s US west coast factory workers will walk off the job after 96 per cent voted on Thursday in favour of a strike, halting production of the planemaker’s strongest-selling jet as it wrestles with chronic output delays and mounting debt.

The workers’ first strike since 2008 will start at midnight Pacific time (0700 GMT) as Friday begins, just weeks after new CEO Kelly Ortberg was brought on in August to restore faith in the planemaker after a door panel blew off a near-new 737 Max jet in mid-air in January.

Roughly 30,000 workers who produce Boeing’s 737 Max and other jets in the Seattle and Portland areas voted on their first full contract in 16 years.

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) members voted 96 per cent in favour of striking and 94.6 per cent to reject the agreement.

“This is about respect, this is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting for our future,” said Jon Holden, who headed the negotiations for IAM, Boeing’s largest union, before announcing the vote result.

“We strike at midnight,” he said, as members in the union hall cheered and chanted: “Strike! Strike! Strike!”