What More Do They Want?

What more do those Boeing workers want? How can they reject a 25% raise over four years? I would be doing the happy dance if my Social Security went up by 25%.

The truth of the matter is more nuanced. Boeing workers have been working under the same contract since the 2008 Recession. That’s sixteen years without a raise. In those sixteen years, the cost of living has increased 47%. That 25% offer from Boeing only recovers half of the purchasing power lost by its workers. Maybe that is why 96% of them rejected the company’s offer.

Boeing also blackmailed its workers during the 2008 Recession. It threatened to relocate production of its latest models from Washington State to non-unionized plants in the American South and eventually to Mexico unless the workers abandoned long-standing medical benefits and a company-sponsored pension plan. The workers caved. When Boeing became prosperous again, executive salaries and bonuses boomed while the workers’ medical benefits and pensions remained dormant.

Boeing was not alone in screwing over its employees. Every time Air Products employees received “An Important Announcement From Employee Benefits”, we knew that we were losing something. When I checked out of the hospital after a two day stay for my hemorrhoidectomy in 1978, my total bill was $12 for the TV in my room. When I checked out of the same hospital after my liver tumor removal in 1988, my bill was upwards of $4 K.

My father was an avid union man. He began working in the mines (at age 14!) working 12 hour shifts six days per week. He had to buy his own dynamite, blasting caps, and tools out of the 50 cents he received for each ton of coal that he mined. If he was working day shift during the winter, he would not see the sun.

The eight hour day and forty hour week did not happen until the mines were unionized. Thank you, FDR.

Today, only 10% of American workers are unionized. In the 1960s, unions represented 1 in 3 American workers. Today, CEO’s “earn” 344 times more than the average worker at their company. In 1965, that ratio was 21 to 1.

Do you suppose that CEOs are taking advantage of non-unionized workers? Is that 25% wage increase really all that generous?

By Ed Dufton