Above photo: Boeing strikers, St. Louis, September 2025.
With their strike against Boeing closing in on three months, St. Louis members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 837 have now rejected Boeing’s fourth disrespectful contract offer.
The workers walked out on Aug. 4. Facing an austerity contract from a powerful monopoly corporation, the Machinists have shown tremendous resilience. Boeing is heavily involved in supplying war planes from the St. Louis plants for the Pentagon’s war on Gaza. Boeing and the Pentagon’s genocidal war against Gaza has the makings of an economic war on strikers at the company’s main military division in St. Louis.
Now comes word that the strike has delayed deliveries of the F-15EX fighter jets to the Pentagon. This has led the bipartisan Congressional Armed Services Committee, which is a warmaker itself, to urge Boeing to give the striking Machinists “a fair contract in a timely manner.” as the F-15 and its newer variations are primary bombers used to rain death on the people of Gaza. Boeing’s relationship with the Pentagon – although they are essentially part of the same entity – might be wearing thin.
Boeing has offered no real improvements in its contract proposals since the workers rejected the first offer on July 27. The latest contract proposal was rejected by the workers on Oct. 26 by 51% to 49%. But IAM members report the picket lines are strong, and there are few strikebreakers. The latest contract proposal did not include the 401(k) 100% match that the workers have been demanding. Boeing reduced the contract signing bonus from $5,000 to $4,000 this time around.
The workers want a bonus like the $12,000 Machinists in the Pacific Northwest got after their 2024 strike. Boeing wants a lengthy five-year contract; the union wants three years. With the working class facing hyperinflation, like many others, Boeing workers are seeing their living standards decline while dealing with all-around hostility from bosses like Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took home $18.4 million in 2024!
Ortberg wants to herd strikebreakers into the plants, but there are few qualified takers. A worker told TV news recently that “when it comes to treating us like ‘One Boeing,’ that all goes out the window.” (Fox 2 St. Louis, Oct. 27)
Victory to the fighting Machinists!
