Thousands of Boeing workers who make the F-15 and F/A-18 fighter jets are about to go on strike
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said in a statement on Sunday that the strike would involve its members at Boeing's plants in St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and Mascoutah in Illinois.
These facilities build and maintain the US military's F-15 Eagle, the F/A-18 Hornet, and some missile technologies.
Boeing's St. Louis facility, as the company's primary military aircraft manufacturing hub, is also expected to be a central site for building the new sixth-generation F-47 fighter.
"IAM District 837 members build the aircraft and defense systems that keep our country safe," IAM's Midwest Territory general vice president, Sam Cicinelli, said in the statement. "They deserve nothing less than a contract that keeps their families secure and recognizes their unmatched expertise."
Last week, the union members said they could not reach an agreement on a four-year contract with Boeing before their previous terms expired on July 27. Now, they said the strike will proceed after a seven-day cooling-off period.
Boeing said in a statement to the media that the company was "prepared for a strike" and had arranged a contingency plan to continue work at its facilities with non-union staff.
"We're disappointed our employees rejected an offer that featured 40% average wage growth and resolved their primary issue on alternative work schedules," said Dan Gillian, vice president and general manager of Boeing's air dominance division and a senior executive at its St. Louis facility.
Boeing faced a far larger strike in the fall of last year, which involved 30,000 of its machinists in the northwestern US who rejected their labor contract. That strike lasted seven weeks and ended in early November.
In an earnings call last Tuesday, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg downplayed the effects of this month's impending strike, saying its scale was "much, much less" than last year's.
"I wouldn't worry too much about the implications of the strike. We'll manage our way through that," Ortberg said.
Still, the strike is yet another challenge for Boeing, which is trying to turn around its reputation in the years after two of its 737 Max passenger airliners crashed — one in 2018 and another in 2019.
More recently, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flown by Air India crashed in June, killing all but one of at least 242 people on board and another 19 people on the ground.
On Friday, four flight attendants filed a lawsuit against Boeing over a 737 Max incident in January 2024, when a door plug blew out midflight. The attendants, who were on board the Alaska Airlines flight, said they received mental and physical injuries.
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Global Upstart Since revving up its international expansion in 2010, Triveni Turbine has motored its way to the No. 2 spot in the market for its products, trailing only megabrand Siemens Energy. *Based on number of units installed in 2024 Source: McCoy Power Reports, Triveni Turbine But Sawhney still has speed bumps to navigate. The steam-turbine business is undergoing rapid change amid the transition to cleaner energy; competition is intense not just from Siemens but other multinational players, such as Brazil's TGM Turbinas and the U.K.'s Baker Hughes; and the threat of tariffs is rattling his U.S. expansion plans, making him acutely aware that he must keep innovating. 'We need to develop new products and new technologies and create newer market segments all the time,' Sawhney says. 'We are very paranoid as a company.' Since going public in 2011, shares of Triveni have rocketed about 1,600%, propelling Sawhney's father, Dhruv Sawhney, under whom the $1.8 billion fortune is listed, into the billionaire ranks, starting in 2022. The fast-growing turbine business accounts for two-thirds of his net worth of $2 billion, with the rest mostly from a stake in the legacy company Triveni Engineering & Industries, which Sawhney's older brother, Tarun, 51, runs as vice chairman and managing director. (Their father is chairman and managing director of both companies.) Dhruv Sawhney, Triveni Turbine's chairman and managing director. Courtesy of Triveni Turbine Triveni Turbine 'has a dominant position in the domestic market, an expanding share in the international market, and strong technological prowess,' according to Teena Virmani, a research analyst at Mumbai-based financial services firm Motilal Oswal. 'It's also very efficient financially,' she adds. 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Triveni has sustained its momentum, and exports—mainly to Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia—accounted for nearly half of total revenue in the year to end-March, up from 11% in 2011. Sawhney says more than 70% of its turbines use renewables, such as biomass. This is in line with data from McCoy that machines powered by renewables accounted for nearly three-quarters of the global market for up-to-100MW steam turbines in 2024, up from 42% in 2014, while those using fossil fuels fell to 22% from 36%. In another nod to sustainability, Triveni has devices that turn municipal waste into energy. Many of its machines also go into combined heat-and-power systems, which capture waste heat from generating electricity and use it for other industrial purposes, improving energy efficiencies. 'We are very paranoid as a company.' 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