Originally published in the Autumn 2024 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 75, printed November 6. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Autumn 2024 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

By Kat McNeal

Editor’s note: On Nov. 4, Boeing workers voted by 59% to accept the company’s latest offer, which did not include restoring the traditional pension plan.

As of presstime, tens of thousands of Boeing workers are still on strike, after voting down the company’s latest contract offer.

On Sept. 12, some 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in California, Washington and Oregon rejected a tentative contract agreement with the troubled aerospace giant and voted to go on strike. At issue: 10 years of wage stagnation and, the major sticking point, the stripping away of workers’ pensions.

Previously based in Seattle and more recently in Chicago, Boeing’s headquarters is now in Arlington, Va.

The strike is taking place in an environment of uncertain job security. The crisis-ridden company had been laying off workers since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, on Oct. 18, new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg announced plans to lay off some 17,000 workers.

The IAM had asked for reinstatement of the pensions that were taken away in 2014, along with a 40% pay raise over four years. To convince the workers to go along with the switch to a 401(k) plan, Boeing had threatened to build its new 777X jet at nonunion facilities.

Traditional pension plans are increasingly rare, because they promise set payments to retirees that must be paid, even if the company is doing badly. Instead, as at Boeing, most institutions have moved to 401(k) plans. In these plans, which were permitted by Congress in 1978, workers put a percentage of their wages in a 401(k) account and employers match it, up to a fixed percentage.

That account is invested in the stock market. If workers don’t save enough, or the investments do badly, too bad. Basically, it’s a way to move the risks and responsibilities of saving for retirement from companies onto employees.

So far, Boeing hasn’t budged on the pension issue. Instead, it countered with an offer of a 35% raise over four years. Workers point out that the company in 2023 gave its last CEO, Dave Calhoun, a 45% raise, increasing his salary to $33 million a year.

Boeing also offered some improvements to the 401(k) plan and promised to preserve an incentive bonus program that the previous rejected contract would have replaced.

On Oct. 23, nearly two thirds of the workers voted to reject the new proposed contract. They’re holding out for those pensions.

Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company, the largest U.S. exporter by value and, as of 2022, was the fourth-largest global “defense” contractor.

If you’ve been following the strike in the media, you’ll see plenty of pundits talking about how unrealistic it is for Boeing workers to try to get their pensions back. But the global credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s estimates that the strike is costing Boeing $1 billion per month.

Let’s wait and see.