Previous Contract Updates

After reporting the Union's frustration at the lack of progress and Company proposals, we did see some movement in committees this past week. Apparently, when we reported a lack of progress/activity to the membership, your message back to managers helped get things on track. Keep it up and talk about the issues.

However, just because the Company began handing proposals across the table does not necessarily mean they are listening or that their proposals are anything our membership would accept. In the Benefits Committee, Boeing did pass a proposal to keep the Traditional Medical Plan as the no-cost premium for the duration of the new contract, but they fail to understand their proposed plan still has deductibles and co-pays higher than Selections - which means a higher cost to our members and is not acceptable to the Union. In Doug Kight's 7/2/08 message, he talks about "we've listened to the IAM and we've proposed several improvements" but that is only a half truth. When Kight says the improvements would be added with the understanding that "employees increase the amount they pay," we know they are not listening. This is a Company that is experiencing record profits and backlogs - yet they seem unwilling to share some of those profits with our membership (the ones who generate the profits). Since the benefits part of the contract was rolled over in 2005 reflecting 2002 negotiated benefits, it's been 6 years since we seen gains in the medical and benefits area, but It's Our Time... This Time!

We believe Boeing is releasing these vague details of their medical proposal to gauge the reaction from members. If they hear you are willing to pay more for your medical, you can bet they will continue down that path. If you send a message to managers in crew meetings and on the Boeing negotiation website that this type of proposal is unacceptable, they will be more likely to listen to what Union negotiators have been saying all along - we need improvements in all areas of the contract.

Let your manager and Doug Kight (through his Internal Boeing Web blog ) know what you think of medical improvements that you would pay for - they need to get the message loud and clear. Let us know what you told him as well to machinists@iam751.org

In Solidarity
Your Union Negotiating Team