Biden Joined the UAW Picket Line Last Year. Will He Do the Same With Boeing?

More than 33,000 Boeing factory workers in the Pacific Northwest voted to strike on September 13, in a monumental moment for labor that could determine the future of the already embattled aircraft company. After 95 percent of unionized workers rejected a tentative agreement with Boeing, 96 percent voted in favor of authorizing a strike — currently the largest in the country.

The strike is just the latest in a long series of challenges facing Boeing, which has in recent years come to epitomize the pitfalls of financialization and the corporate cost-cutting measures endemic to U.S. capitalism. As Boeing faces scrutiny for not only its labor practices but also its failures to comply with consumer safety standards, the strike offers an easy opportunity for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to reaffirm their support for unions and workers. But while Biden made the historic choice to walk the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line in September 2023, his administration, as well as the Harris campaign, have been relatively quiet on the Boeing machinists’ strike.

White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson told reporters on September 13 that the Biden administration had been in touch with both Boeing and the union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). “We encourage them to negotiate in good faith — toward an agreement that gives employees the benefits they deserve and makes the company stronger,” Patterson wrote. The Harris campaign has not issued a statement, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Politico that neither Biden nor Harris planned to walk the picket line.

The Boeing strike arrives as the company faces allegations of cutting corners to save costs, leading to potential safety issues. In July, Boeing took a plea deal in a criminal fraud conspiracy case brought by the Department of Justice related to two fatal crashes of its 737 Max jet. Boeing agreed to pay a criminal fine of $243.6 million and invest at least $455 million to strengthen its safety protocols.

“Boeing senior executives prioritized the movement of aircraft through Boeing’s factories over reducing out-of-sequence work to ensure production quality,” federal prosecutors wrote.

The federal prosecution of Boeing was a watershed moment, as the aircraft giant is one of the U.S. government’s top defense contractors. In 2022, Boeing had $14.8 billion in Pentagon contracts, and last year, sales to the U.S. government accounted for more than a third of Boeing’s revenue. Boeing supplies tankers, aircraft, military communications satellites, attack helicopters, air and missile defense systems, and more to the Defense Department’s various branches. While Boeing’s new criminal fraud charge has raised questions surrounding its ability to continue receiving federal contracts, legal experts told The Seattle Times in July that “the government depends too much on Boeing” for the recent plea deal to undermine the billions of dollars in contracting work.

But the lawsuit is only the beginning of Boeing’s problems. The current strike is the culmination of decades of worker dissatisfaction. Boeing’s machinists last struck in 2008 for eight weeks, costing the company a reported $100 million per day in revenue. In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint against Boeing for its choice to open a nonunion production plant in South Carolina — a state with fewer labor protections and a lower unionization rate than the country’s average. The NLRB alleged that Boeing had transferred work from Washington State to South Carolina in retaliation for the 2008 strike. The complaint sparked the ire of Republican lawmakers, who alleged at the time that President Barack Obama’s administration was overreaching its regulatory authority. The NLRB later dropped the case at the request of IAM, after Boeing reached an agreement with the union to increase wages and production in Washington.

While Biden made the historic choice to walk the United Auto Workers picket line in September 2023, his administration, as well as the Harris campaign, have been relatively quiet on the Boeing machinists’ strike.

Since then, Boeing has continued to engage in union-busting efforts in South Carolina. When workers in the state voted to unionize in 2018, Boeing filed an appeal against the election results with the NLRB. The union alleged that workers were fired and spied upon by Boeing for supporting the unionization drive, sparking the NLRB to file a new complaint against the company.

Meanwhile, Boeing was undermining union workers in Washington State — this time reopening a previous union contract in 2014 before it had expired. A slim majority of IAM members voted yes on the newly proposed agreement, which did away with pension benefits and afforded only minimal wage increases that have not kept up with the cost of living.

Now, Boeing’s workers are refusing to settle. IAM members are pushing to win a 40 percent pay raise over four years, voting to strike for a better contract after Boeing came back in the final hours of negotiations with an offer for a 25 percent increase.

Shortly after the machinists voted to strike, Boeing announced it would freeze hiring and begin furloughing tens of thousands of employees to cut costs. Boeing is currently facing roughly $60 billion in debt, and Chief Financial Officer Brian West told investors on September 13 that the strike would “jeopardize our recovery.” Meanwhile, however, Boeing’s top executives have continued to receive massive compensation packages: Last year, then-Chief Executive Office Dave Calhoun received $32.8 million in total compensation — a 45 percent increase from 2022.

“We’re supposed to be the best in the aerospace industry. They need to be paying their employees accordingly,” a striking IAM member told More Perfect Union. “They’re willing to pay all their executives. The upper crust makes all the money in the world, but the people who build the planes can’t?”

Calhoun announced he would be stepping down this year amid scrutiny over Boeing’s safety record, including the criminal fraud investigation, a high-profile incident in which a door panel blew off a 737 Max jet mid-flight, and a February report by the Federal Aviation Administration in which Boeing failed numerous safety audits of its 737 manufacturing process. Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, took office in August and stands to make $22 million next year in total compensation.

After union workers indicated that they were unhappy with Boeing’s proposed agreement, Ortberg sent an open letter to staff: “I hope you will choose the bright future ahead, but I also know there are employees considering another path — and it’s one where no one wins.”

On September 18, federal mediators joined Boeing and IAM negotiations in what will surely amount to be a defining test for the Biden-Harris administration’s purportedly pro-labor agenda. Will federal involvement help broker a fair deal for workers, or will it replicate the disappointments of Biden’s past missteps, including signing a bill that undermined a railroad worker strike in 2022?

The Boeing strike is just the latest test of the Biden-Harris administration’s labor agenda, with more challenges on the way. About 45,000 dockworkers are now threatening to stage their own strike as early as October 1, shutting down ports and disrupting global trade. Time is ticking — and as the gulf between corporate executives and working people widens, the labor movement is showing no sign of slowing down