Deadline for all Boeing machinists to report back to work is Tuesday
Tuesday is the deadline for all Boeing machinists to report back to work after their nearly two-month-long strike ended last week.
After workers voted to approve a new contract on Nov. 4, the union said its workers could return to work as soon as Wednesday or as late as Nov. 12.
The company's 33,000 striking machinists disbanded their picket lines after leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers district in Seattle said 59% of union members who cast ballots agreed to approve the company's fourth formal offer, which included a 38% wage increase over four years.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has said it might take "a couple of weeks" to resume production, in part because some workers might need retraining.
As the machinists get back to work, management will have to address a host of other problems. The company needs to get on better financial footing. But while doing so, it also needs to prioritize the quality of its workmanship and its relationships with employees and suppliers, analysts said.
Boeing has been managing itself to meet short-term profit goals and "squeezing every stakeholder, squeezing every employee, every supplier to the point of failure in order in order to maximize their short-term financial performance," Gautam Mukunda, lecturer at the Yale School of Management. said. "That is bad enough if you run a clothing company. It is unacceptable when you are building the most complex mass-produced machines human beings have ever built."
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