The Boeing Vote: A Lesson in How Things Work

It’s not that often we can see exactly how the system works, laid bare, without the usual makeup. The Boeing machinists’ vote provides a little practical example of how things work.

Not that long ago, Boeing made a surprise mid-contract offer to the machinists, that if they would give up their defined benefit pensions and several other benefits, the company would build its next plane in the Seattle area. The State bureaucracy, usually slow to attend to the will of the people, suddenly came to life, as politicians fell all over themselves to pass, in a single weekend, a six billion dollar tax package to entice Boeing to stay in Washington. The International Union, dancing to management’s tune, insisted over the local’s objection that the offer be put to the workers. But Boeing’s offer was overwhelmingly voted down by the machinists, who apparently resenting the sudden pressure, and in no mood to give up benefits it had taken generations to achieve.

The holidays came, and just like every year, Boeing shut down from before Christmas to after New Year’s, and the workers scattered on their vacations. Meanwhile a second vote was scheduled by the International Union, to take place before all the workers came back from holiday. At first I wondered if someone had done a quick analysis of who would be out of town, that the scheduling of this second vote represented an effort to cut out certain categories of workers to skew the results. There had to be some reason why the vote was scheduled to take place just a day or so before everyone was back to work.

Now I think the timing reflects something more fundamental than the demographics of who might be out of town for the holidays. The thing missing in those few weeks that Boeing shut down was the “shop floor.” If anybody understands the role of the shop floor in organizing workers, it would be the International Union. The place where workers talk it out, form their opinions, and build their strength is mainly at work, on the shop floor, and in the break rooms. With Boeing shut down for the holidays, there was no shop floor. Meanwhile every pundit, politician and press mouthpiece campaigned at fever pitch to sway the vote. The Seattle Times ran a daily front page series, featuring cities around the country who were scrambling to attract those Boeing jobs. Not a TV news report passed without a segment on how Boeing wasn’t bluffing, and how the workers owed it to the region to accept Boeing’s offer. One after another, politicians opened their mouths and Boeing’s voice came out, like some bad pod-people movie. The only way it could have been more obvious is if their eyes lit up when they talked. The company line poured down on the machinists like Seattle rain. If Boeing could engineer airplanes the way they engineered this campaign, nobody would have to worry about battery boxes catching fire. And through it all, the shop floor, traditional source of workers’ unity and power, was missing. When the once-rejected offer barely passed, the Seattle Times gleefully announced in a banner headline: “Done Deal.” It was a bitter pill, but clear lesson in how things work.

Randy Rowland