Nearly 33 thousand Boeing factory workers at several U.S. plants have gone on strike Friday at 12:01 a.m. after negotiations broke down.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union representing the workers rejected a contract offer that included a 25 per cent pay raise across four years, that the company said was “the largest ever general wage increase offer.”
The union says that the offer was 40 per cent less than what they were asking for.
In a vote made hours before the deadline, 94.6 per cent of the voting workers rejected the contract offer, and 96 per cent approved the work stoppage.
“The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to the members,” a spokesperson from Boeing told CHCH News.
“We remain committed to resetting our relationship with our employees and the union, and we are ready to get back to the table to reach a new agreement.”
The strike is another setback for the aerospace giant, whose reputation and finances have been hit by manufacturing problems and multiple investigations by the U.S. government this year.
This is the first workers stoppage since 2008, and follows after a door panel blew off a 737 MAX jet during a flight in January.
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