More than 30,000 Boeing workers to strike after turning down contract proposal

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- More than 30,000 Boeing workers will go on strike starting Friday after turning down a tentative contract proposal hammered out by the company and union negotiators.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted 94.6% to reject the agreement, while 96% voted in favor of a strike.

"We strike at midnight," IAM District 751 President Jon Holden said at a press conference on Thursday.

The strike will shut down aircraft assembly at Boeing plants in Seattle, with stoppages also expected in Portland, Ore., and California.

The agreement put before workers would have increased wages by 25%, slashed employee contribution to health care costs and ensured that Boeing's next plane would be constructed at its union plants and not its non-union sites in South Carolina

But contract foes said raises of about 40% were needed along with updates to its pension plan. Boeing executives, though, claimed it was the best contract the company has ever offered a union.

Holden called the stoppage an "unfair labor practice strike," saying workers at the factories faced "discriminatory conduct, coercive questioning, unlawful surveillance," adding that the union had received an "unlawful promise of benefits."

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who has been leading the company for less than two months, said a strike could hobble its recovery and called for the union to accept the deal.

"We have achieved everything we could in bargaining, short of a strike," Holden told members in a message before the voting. "We recommended acceptance because we can't guarantee we can achieve more in a strike.

"But that is your decision to make and is a decision that we will protect and support, no matter what."