When management left the room, one committee member said “They are leaving us no choice. They want to cut overtime, create more minimum wage jobs, and give us almost no increase pushing even the long term workers closer and closer to minimum wage. And they won’t fund our medical for a third year? They leave us with no choice but to fight back”

And that is exactly what is happening. For the first time in decades, the Union committee are circulating a strike vote petition and the petition has quickly gained huge support from the rank and file. A strike sanction request is before the Martin Luther King County Labor Council.  And in a sign of solidarity, members are wearing their fair contract buttons in order to send the message to Compass and Boeing that they are willing to take action if need be in order to get a fair contract.

This is how bad management’s proposal is:

• No funding for medical insurance for a third year
• One penny increase in employee retirement plans over the life of the contract
• Cuts in overtime benefits
• Horrible wage increases.  Many of the positions at Boeing’s cafeteria now start at minimum wage or close to minimum wage….and the company’s proposed solution was to increase wages by 10 cents. Yet minimum wage increased nearly fifty cents in January.

Click here and here to view fliers the committee distributed last week, and stay tuned for more details on the strike vote petition and other job actions.