Striking Boeing employees are rejecting the company’s latest contract offer

Boeing factory workers voted Wednesday to reject the company’s latest contract offer and continue a six-week strike that has halted production of the aerospace giant’s best-selling jetliners.

Local labor leaders in Seattle said the proposal fell short of the majority support needed from members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers who cast their votes Wednesday.

The offer included a 35% pay increase over four years. The version that union members rejected when they voted to strike last month saw a 25% increase over four years.

The union, which initially demanded a 40% pay increase over three years, said the annual increases in the revised offer would add up to 39.8%.

Boeing employees told Associated Press reporters that one sticking point was the company’s refusal to reinstate a traditional pension plan that was abolished a decade ago.

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The labor standoff comes during an already challenging year for Boeing, which became the focus of multiple federal investigations after a door panel on a 737 Max plane blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

The strike has deprived the company of much-needed cash it gets from supplying new planes to airlines. On Wednesday, the company reported a third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion.

Union machinists assemble the 737 Max, Boeing’s best-selling plane, along with the 777 or “triple-seven” plane and the 767 freighter at factories in Renton and Everett, Washington.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told employees in a memo this month that about 10% of the company’s global workforce of 170,000 people would be laid off in the coming months if the strike did not end.

He said the company would also further delay the rollout of a new aircraft, the 777X, to 2026 instead of 2025, and stop building the freighter version of its 767 aircraft in 2027 after current orders were completed.

Before reporting third-quarter results Wednesday, Boeing reported losses of more than $25 billion since the start of 2019.

Boeing has said the average annual wage for machinists is currently $75,608.

Early in the strike, Boeing made what it called its “best and final” offer. The proposal included wage increases of 30% over four years, and angered union leaders because the company announced this to striking workers through the media and set a short ratification deadline.

Boeing withdrew and gave the union more time. However, many employees insisted the offer was still not good enough. The company withdrew the proposed contract on October 9 after negotiations collapsed, and the two sides announced the latest proposal on Saturday.

The last Boeing strike, in 2008, lasted eight weeks and cost the company about $100 million a day in deferred revenue. A 1995 strike lasted ten weeks.

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