Boeing Co., Machinists Begin Talks Both Sides Pledge To Reach Pact Before Oct. 5 Deadline

Negotiators for The Boeing Co. and its machinists union started round-the-clock bargaining Thursday on a new three-year contract, with both sides pledging an agreement before the current pact expires Oct. 5.

“We are not here to negotiate a strike,” said Bill Johnson, president of the International Association of Machinists District 751, at a brief joint news conference held before talks began. “We are here to negotiate a labor agreement.”

Machinists voted overwhelmingly last week to give union leaders authority to call a strike if necessary, a standard tactic to increase clout at the bargaining table.

The union - Boeing’s largest, representing 34,000 workers, including 293 at Boeing Spokane - wants language in the new contract to restrict company use of subcontractors and the transfer of union jobs to foreign companies. The machinists also seek wage increases and lump-sum payments in all three years of the contract.

Machinists earn an average hourly wage of more than $18 an hour.

“The issues we face today are not particularly dissimilar from the negotiations we’ve faced before,” Boeing’s chief negotiator, Milt Grover, said at the news conference. “They revolve around a need for balance to provide the company with the ability to move forward.”

Grover said he was confident an agreement would be reached, though he did not discount the possibility of a strike.

“I think that anybody who is a prudent manager will do contingency planning for any event,” he said. “But let me re-enforce, we are here to negotiate an agreement.”

Fourteen negotiators, meeting in a closed room at the SeaTac Red Lion Inn, said they planned to work round-the-clock until an agreement is reached.

Though face-to-face negotiations began Thursday, preliminary talks had been under way since Aug. 4.

Since the current machinists’ contract was signed in 1992, Boeing has cut 30,000 jobs company-wide.