By Jim McMahan
October 16, 2024
Seattle, October 13
After one month on the picket line, 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists District Lodge 751 remain strong. On strike against giant weapons and aircraft producer Boeing, they are fighting back against two decades of anti-labor attacks on workers and their living standards. District Lodge 751 represents Machinists in Seattle; Portland, Oregon, and a few smaller locations.
Outside a Boeing factory in Auburn, Washington, Sept. 19, 2024.
Boeing is up to its neck in problems, facing three things: a powerful strike, a mounting pile of production and financial troubles and anger over Boeing’s role as a producer of weapons used against Palestine and the Arab World. There is a growing outcry against the company for its anti-labor attacks and its genocidal role in the war on the people of Palestine. People are protesting Boeing worldwide.
District 751 Local I President Bruce McFarland said: “What do the Boeing Machinists want? It’s simple. We want what was taken from us 10 years ago when we were pressured into a contract that took away our pension, forced us into a
stagnating wage package and raised our medical bills.” (Seattle Times, Oct. 11)
The previous contract, when the union made concessions, has meant that entry level workers are barely making $21 an hour. McFarland described an avalanche of Boeing and state government maneuvers and threats which essentially forced a regressive contract down the workers’ throats. This included a wholesale moving of much of Boeing airplane production from Seattle to a non-union plant in South Carolina.
This was a stinging defeat for the Machinists, but now they are back on their feet to fight again — like so many other workers.
With negotiations at an impasse, Boeing has announced job cuts affecting 10% of its workforce. These cuts are company-wide and involve supervisory as well as hourly workers.
Boeing supplies the genocidal Zionist state
While the war against the Boeing Machinists is going on, a much larger war against the workers and all people of Palestine has, in this latest phase, been raging for the past year. Israel is being led by the U.S. and the Pentagon in their quest to hold on to imperialism’s global empire. One of the largest Pentagon contractors is Boeing.
The number one supplier of the billions of dollars worth of military assistance sent to Israel in the past year, Boeing makes the F-15 fighter jet, one of the main bomber planes used by the Zionist state. The Pentagon also supplies Israel with thousands of Boeing-made “smart” bombs, Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, Chinook helicopters, Pegasus mid-air refueling aircraft and much more. Boeing just moved its main headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia, to be closer to the Pentagon.
It’s clear that Boeing and the Pentagon are waging a war on two fronts — against the Machinists union in Seattle and Portland and a cataclysmic war of genocide on Arab nations.
The Palestinian struggle has the support of oppressed, working-class humanity the world over. Now that 33,000 workers at the Pentagon-backed Boeing are involved in a major strike, and the Palestinians are testing their mettle against the U.S.-Israeli war machine, this could be a time to show that there are common interests between workers of an oppressed nation, Palestine, and striking workers in the imperialist U.S.
The IAM members are aware that, while they build mostly civilian planes, about one-quarter of Boeing’s production is military. But Boeing workers didn’t ask to produce weapons of mass destruction any more than they asked to give up their own pensions.
Striking Machinists might call for, instead of building weapons, using Boeing’s advanced technology for building mass transportation vehicles and other peaceful production. That would demonstrate that they are for the constructive use of technological production for advancing humanity — not for destruction and genocide.
Solidarity with Palestine against the Pentagon and Boeing could take many forms, and it would build immense unity in the class struggle against the U.S.-backed war.
