Boeing's frail financial health leverage for machinists

By Thomas Black / Bloomberg Opinion

While a now-suspended strike by East Coast port workers briefly strangled the flow of goods from Maine to Texas and grabbed headlines, news of machinists at the Boeing Co. about to enter their fourth week of picketing near Seattle has receded a bit into the background.

The potential impact from the port workers strike might have increased by the day as the damage to the economy and consumers threatened to bite. That’s not the case for Boeing and it workers. It’s effects aren’t as visible to the public. Delays of plane deliveries, unfortunately, are nothing new to Boeing customers. They’ve been grappling with a dearth of new planes for years after the grounding of the 737 Max following two deadly crashes and the quality snags that had halted shipments of the 787.

The pressure on Boeing, though, is acute. The company is in a dire financial position, burning through billions of dollars of cash and teetering at the edge of having its credit rating cut to junk. The company has floated the idea of raising $10 billion or more by selling shares, which wouldn’t happen until the strike is resolved.

The approximately 33,000 machinists on strike know this. Time is on their side. In fact, many have been preparing for this moment for years, stuffing away savings to stick it to a company that coerced them into signing contract extensions that slowed wage gains and eliminated their defined-pension benefits. Gig-economy jobs also give the union members an outlet to earn money during the strike, as Bloomberg News’ Julie Johnsson and Anna Edgerton highlighted.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-boeings-frail-financial-health-leverage-for-machinists/