The Boeing Company Labor Relations Problem

The organization which is the focus of this research is The Boeing Company. Boeing engages in a variety of operations, which span a number of industries, with plants and other operational facilities sited in a wide range of geographic locales. Boeing's primary line of business, however, is large jet aircraft airframe manufacture, and the assembly of airframes, engines, and other components required to produce a large jet aircraft. It is the company's jet aircraft business which is the focus of this research.

While Boeing conducts its jet aircraft manufacturing operations in a wide variety of geographic locations, the great majority of this activity is concentrated in the Puget Sound region of the State of Washington. Again, it is the Puget Sound operations of the company's jet aircraft manufacturing business which is the focus of this research.

On 4 October 1989, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) struck the Boeing Company's Puget Sound area plants (O'Lone, 1989c). The labor dispute would eventually be settled on 20 November 1989, when the IAM voted 81 percent in favor of accepting a company offer (O'Lone, 1989d). The six weeks long strike is the labor relations problem which is examined in this research.

Boeing, at the time of the machinists strike, had a huge order backlog. The company's plants were working around-the-clock shifts to keep up with promised delivery schedules, and, alth

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ge rates on the same time schedule. At contract signing, a five percent cost of living increase would become effective, with similar increases projected for the second and third contract years. Boeing also agreed to pay a total of 19 percent in bonus payments. The bonus payments would be split, with one-half paid on contract signing, and the remainder at the beginning of the second contract year. Lastly, Boeing agreed to reduce the mandatory overtime requirement from 200 hours per person per quarter to 144 hours per quarter. The union, however, did not gain the right to participate in the scheduling of overtime. RELATED LABOR CONTEXT Although the general level of membership in labor unions in the United States has been in steady decline since the early 1950s (when measured as a proportion of the total work force, as opposed to actual numbers of members), the importance of labor unions in the wage setting process in the country remains a center of controversy. By 1985, union membership had declined to 17 million workers, or about 15 percent of the civilian labor force (Doyle, 1985). Organized labor has always been strongest in the industrial sector. The decline in the so-called smokestack industries has likely been a

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