At a rally this month in Seattle, machinists union vice president Gary Allen addressed a hall full of striking Boeing workers. When I'm out on the picket line, I ask everybody, what is the strike about to you?, he said. Allen didn't even have a chance to answer his own question before the machinists in the room interrupted. Pension! Pension! Pension!, they chanted. Pensions are a major sticking point between Boeing and the union. The machinists want the company to restore the traditional pension plan they lost a decade ago. But Boeing hasn't budged.
Definitely the loss of that pension is still there right at the heart of this for many, said Jon Holden, the president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751, after members voted down the company's latest offer last week. The union says Boeing pushed members to give up their pension plan in 2014, in part by threatening to move production of new planes elsewhere if they didn't.
The 401(k) program is gambling on our retirement, said Kat Kinckiner, a union steward who has worked at Boeing for close to 15 years. To take away the pension and not compensate us enough to cover it? It's just another takeaway, and there's nothing unreasonable about wanting it back.
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