Boeing union rejects offer to end strike, complicating CEO’s plan to turn company around

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Boeing is no closer to ending its six-week-old strike after its latest contract offer was rejected by workers last night by a stunning margin.

  The results of that vote came just hours after the company announced a huge quarterly loss and acknowledged it has a long way to go to earn back customers' trust.

  Stephanie Sy has our report.

  (Cheering)

• Stephanie Sy:

  The latest attempt to end a six-week strike didn't end well for Boeing.

  Jon Holden, President, International Association of Machinists District 751: Today, members voted to reject the company's latest offer by 64 percent, 64 percent.

  (Cheering)

• Stephanie Sy:

  An overwhelming result that keeps 33,000 factory workers on the picket lines in Washington, Oregon and California.

  After last night's vote, Jon Holden, the president of the local union, vowed to keep putting the pressure on Boeing.

• Jon Holden:

  We will stand for the demands that our members need to get a contract that they can respect, that shows the respect that they deserve. There's much more work to do.

• Stephanie Sy:

  If the deal had passed, it would have given workers a 35 percent wage increase over four years, as well as a $7,000 signing bonus, a compromise between the company's offer of a 25 percent increase and the union's initial demand for a 40 percent raise.

  Boeing refused to budge on demands that it restore a traditional pension that was axed a decade ago. Workers say that is a major sticking point.

• Brian Hatcher, Boeing Employee:

  Even a lot of the new hires are looking at the pension as a way to the future. The fact that the country has not given that as an option and everybody says they're out of date does not mean they don't work.

• Charles Fromong, Boeing Employee:

  I feel sorry for the young people. I have spent my life here and I'm getting ready to go. But they deserve a pension and I deserve an increase.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Boeing says its machinists make about $75,000 a year, on average. The majority of those on strike live in the Seattle area, where living costs have skyrocketed in the last decade, far outpacing Boeing's annual raises and COLA adjustments.

• Jeremiah Rosario, Boeing Employee:

  People that have been here in this leading industry, the biggest aerospace company in the world, we like to see better from them and we deserve better from them.

• Stephanie Sy:

  The labor standoff has contributed to a huge backlog of orders. Ahead of the vote yesterday, the company announced its third-quarter revenue, a dismal $6 billion loss.

  Boeing, a century-old icon of American aviation, had been experiencing turbulence well before the strike began. Not long after the 737 MAX hit the market in 2017, two of them crashed, killing 346 people. And in January of this year, a door panel blew off that same model midair.

• Kelly Ortberg, CEO, Boeing:

  There's no silver bullet. This isn't going to be fixed in one fell swoop.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Yesterday, before the union vote, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, at the helm only since August, spoke on CNBC.

• Kelly Ortberg:

  We're reevaluating the values in the company, and we really need to invoke — embark on a culture change that is something more than just a poster on the wall. It's really going to guide how the company behaves.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Ortberg admitted to investors that trust has — quote — "eroded," but he committed to restoring the company's reputation.

• Kelly Ortberg:

  This is not a story about losing market support for our products. Demand is tremendous. This is a story about us getting our act together and being able to deliver the aircraft to the demand that they need.

• Stephanie Sy:

  But, first, the company needs to get all its workers back on board.

  The union hopes the Biden administration, including acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, who was in Seattle 10 days ago, will facilitate the party's return to the negotiating table. The strike is estimated to be costing the company a billion dollars a month.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.