30,000 Boeing workers strike for better contract

More than 30,000 Boeing workers went on strike early Friday after workers overwhelmingly rejected a tentative agreement between Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, reported Xinhua.

The Boeing workers approved the strike with a 96 percent vote, far more than the two-thirds vote required for a work stoppage.

IAM District 751 President Jon Holden announced the vote's results and confirmed the "unfair labor practice strike" starting from midnight at a news conference on Thursday, adding that factory workers had experienced "discriminatory conduct, coercive questioning, unlawful surveillance and we had unlawful promise of benefits."

"The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to the members," Boeing said in a statement. "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."

Stephanie Pope, CEO of Boeing's commercial airplane unit said earlier this week that the tentative deal was the "best contract we've ever presented."

The tentative proposal included 25 percent wage increases and other improvements to health care and retirement benefits, while the union had sought raises of about 40 percent.

The strike was a heavy blow to the company, which had struggled to ramp up production and restore its reputation following safety crises. The work stoppage halts the production of most of the company's aircraft.

Boeing's production has fallen short of expectations as the company works to deal with manufacturing flaws and faces other industrywide problems such as supply and labor shortages.

Boeing workers once went on strike in 2008 for nearly two months.

A door plug blowout on a newly delivered Boeing 737 Max 9 to Alaska Airlines in January this year has brought additional federal scrutiny of Boeing's production.

"Our aggressive oversight of Boeing continues," the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement on Friday.