Boeing Workers’ Strike Effort Gets A Big Boost Kaiser Employees, Friends And Co-Workers Rally For Speea

They’ve been off the job for a month without a strike fund to support them.

But Boeing Corp.’s engineers and technicians who left their jobs because of a contract dispute a month ago today are getting enough gifts to get by.

On Tuesday, Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO came to Seattle and gave the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace a $50,000 check. He also promised the union, which represents more than 20,000 striking engineers and technical workers, $25,000 a week for the duration of the strike.

The striking workers aren’t eligible for state unemployment benefits.

The Communication Workers of America also offered a weekly contribution of $25,000. And the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the International Union of Electrical Workers each supplied one-time checks for $25,000.

“Today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes, we will stand with you,” Trumka told the SPEEA members in Seattle on Tuesday.

Locally, the 50 workers on strike at Boeing’s West Plains plant have found support from unlikely places.

Passers-by have left coffee, cookies, pizza and occasionally checks and cash.

This week, United Steelworkers union members who are locked out of their jobs at Kaiser Aluminum replaced the small wood stove at the local Boeing picket line with a large burn oven.

A man who raises pigs delivered hams to the line. And people have left baby food, diapers and dog food.

In addition, “they’re taking up collections inside the plant,” said Dennis Davaz, spokesman for the SPEEA members in Spokane. Machinists who worked alongside SPEEA members at the Boeing plant are giving parts of their own paychecks to help their colleagues pay bills.

“We’ve had lots of different kinds of support here through our food drive and through financial support,” Davaz said.

The Spokane workers can also take part in monetary donations made to the union in Western Washington.

“I think I will,” Davaz said. “I’ve got to pay some bills. The support’s there, so I’m going to take advantage of it.”

So are several other workers who should be getting checks from the union in the next week or so.

“A lot of people are fairly well prepared,” said Davaz. “But some of us didn’t plan as well as we should have.”

Next week, negotiators from the union will come to Spokane to talk to the SPEEA members on the picket line and update them on contract issues.

“Some of the folks over here feel a little isolated,” Davaz said. “It will be great to be able to talk to some real live people from over on the coast.”