Boeing machinists voting on contract
If International Association of Machinists members reject the new contract proposal, a strike could cost Boeing $100 million a day and delay delivery of work for the government. Danielle Karson reports.
The Boeing logo on the company's corporate world headquarters building in Chicago, Ill. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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KAI RYSSDAL: We've got a better idea today of the damage that was done to the Gulf Coast's oil infrastructure. Not too much. Production's expected to be back up to 100 percent sooner rather than later. Which helps explain why oil hit a five-month low at one point this afternoon.
Airline stocks rose on the oil drop. The airplane maker Boeing did fine, considering. It's waiting for the result of a key contract vote by its biggest union tomorrow. Danielle Karson reports.
Danielle Karson: Boeing says the 300-page agreement is its final offer. Spokesman Tom Healy calls it the best contract in the industry.
Tom Healy: It rewards employees for the success that the company's had. We've had three strong years selling airplanes. They've earned it; they deserve it; and that's what this offer does.
The contract would bump up wages 11 percent and pensions more than 14 percent over three years. Marick Masters, an analyst at the University of Pittsburgh, says the contract is generous, but ...
Marick Masters: These workers want a share of the record profits. They look at it as them having made a good deal of effort to make Boeing in the situation that it's in today, and they're asking for their fair share.
Analysts say a strike would hurt Boeing's delivery schedule of government contracts. A strike could also cost the company $100 million a day in revenue.
In Washington, I'm Danielle Karson for Marketplace.
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From Washington, DC, 09/09/2008
I was a bit disappointed that Marketplace neglected to include a machinist or union representative, even as an indirect source for this news item. As shown in a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress, this fits a pattern in the mainstream media of favoring business voices over those of working people ("Giving Workers the Business" by CAP). In such a story as this, the bias involved in including a Boeing spokesperson but not a worker's point of view is truly glaring.
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