IAM union announces third deal to end Boeing strike, vote held a day before US presidential election

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Boeing workers picket after union members voted to reject a new contract from the company, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, outside Boeing facilities in Renton, Washington. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

The International Association of Machinists announced a third tentative agreement with Boeing on Thursday evening in an attempt to end a seven-week strike by 33,000 aerospace workers. Voting is scheduled for next Monday, the day before the US presidential election.

Once again, the IAM bureaucracy has put forward a contract that does not meet any of the workers’ demands. The wage offer is just 38 percent, 3 percent more than what contract workers voted against last week and still less than the 40 percent minimum rate workers have made clear they will accept.

Most importantly, the agreement does not deviate at all from the restoration of pensions, the main demand of workers. The pensions were stolen in 2014 when Boeing forced workers into a 10-year extension under the threat of moving production to a nonunion plant in South Carolina. Instead of fighting, IAM helped Boeing narrowly secure the deal.

The only other change to the proposal, which workers rejected by 64 percent, was moving money from 401(k)s into signing bonuses. This is an attempt to use the workers’ economic insecurity caused by the union’s $250 a week strike pay to push through essentially the same deal.

The deal also allows the company to continue with 17,000 layoffs worldwide to make workers pay for the safety crisis caused by cost-cutting for profit. There can be no doubt that the company is holding in reserve for even deeper cuts to call for an end to the strike, as it did last year following contract awards in the US auto industry and at UPS.

This is the third consecutive sell-off agreement that the IAM bureaucracy has returned in violation of clear member mandates. This highlights the fact that victory is only possible if workers take control of the strike from the corrupt bureaucracy. The Boeing rank and file committee must be expanded so that workers can take control of the strike, from adequately manning the picket lines to actually controlling all future negotiations and extending the struggle to broader sections of the working class.

The IAM bureaucracy has a strategy not to win, but to help the government and leadership impose betrayal. After workers humiliated bureaucrats in front of the White House last week by rejecting a deal brokered by Biden’s acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, the government ordered the union to force them to vote again. IAM officials reiterated Su’s central role in the “new” agreement.

Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su speaks to President Joe Biden during a visit to the UA Local 190 training center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Friday, September 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancia)

Notably, the IAM formally approved the latest TA after refusing to formally take a position on the latter. The bureaucracy is clearly under pressure from both the government and Wall Street to finally end the strike that has cost them billions of dollars.

Workers reacted furiously to the announcement Thursday night. “This is a terrible proposal,” one worker told the WSWS. “They just moved the $5,000,401k contribution (which is tax-free) to the signing bonus (which is taxable), so the only thing that changed was the overall 3 percent pay increase. It wouldn’t even be worth voting if I were the one leading the negotiations. The union also sold out in 2014. I am completely opposed to approving any of these proposals.”

“This is the same as the previous one!” – said another worker. By scheduling a vote on the contract before the presidential election, the worker said the union is trying to improve Kamala Harris’ chances of winning. “I talked to many of my colleagues and we all said we would vote before the election. The union bureaucrats are selling us out to get something for themselves. We all see it.”

The decision to schedule a vote before the general election is a very deliberate one. Even beyond whatever impact this may have on the Democrats’ electoral chances, the entire ruling class is determined to end the strike before the post-election political war begins. Trump and the Republicans, having learned from the “mistakes” of January 6, 2021, have very advanced plans to seize power regardless of the results, inciting violence to establish a fascist dictatorship.

Despite being the immediate target of these conspiracies, the Biden White House is aiding Trump’s agenda by suppressing class struggle. But the Democratic Party is even more afraid of popular mobilization than Trump. This is because workers will intervene in a political crisis with their demands against social inequality and war, which will hinder the Democrats’ efforts to form a government of national unity with the Republicans.

By positioning Harris as the “stability” candidate, Democrats’ only goal is to prepare the country for war. This includes not only escalating conflicts with Russia and Iran, but also developing plans for a large-scale war with China. This requires austerity, suppression of strikes and democratic rights, and a significant increase in the exploitation of the working class.

This is why both capitalist parties agree on the need to end the strike on Boeing, a major defense contractor. Earlier this week, three Republican governors issued a public letter opposing the strike, threatening economic blackmail through furloughs and layoffs.

The seven-week strike at Boeing has reached a decisive stage. Workers are openly participating in the fight not only against management, but also against the pro-corporate political system. The crucial issue, as the rank and file committee of Boeing workers discussed at a public meeting last weekend, is to mobilize the independent power of the working class on a global scale to oppose a united ruling class front against the strike.

A prerequisite for this is the development of new structures that will enable workers to act independently of union bureaucrats and establish channels of communication with workers around the world who are also facing layoffs. On Tuesday, the International Labor Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees called for a global campaign in response to mass layoffs in the auto industry, “including worldwide pickets and rallies and culminating in international strikes.”

“The stage for this must be set by establishing lines of communication between auto workers in the US, Germany and other countries in alliance with workers in other industries facing layoffs, including at Boeing, which announced 17,000 layoffs in response for almost seven layoffs. week-long strike,” said the IWA-RFC.