Boeing's fighter jet workers in the St. Louis area reject a contract offer
The International Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said the vote by District 837 members was overwhelmingly against the proposed contract. The existing contract was to expire at 11:59 p.m. Central time Sunday, but the union said a 'cooling off' period would keep a strike from beginning for another week, until Aug. 4.
Union leaders had recommended approving the offer, calling it a 'landmark' agreement when it was announced last week. Organizers said then that the offer would improve medical, pension and overtime benefits in addition to pay.
The vote came two days before Boeing planned to announce its second quarter earnings, after saying earlier this month that it had delivered 150 commercial airliners and 36 military aircraft and helicopters during the quarter, up from 130 and 26 during the first quarter. Its stock closed Friday at $233.06 a share, up $1.79.
The union did not say specifically why members rejected the contract, only that it 'fell short of addressing the priorities and sacrifices' of the union's workers. Last fall, Boeing offered a general wage increase of 38% over four years to end a 53-day strike by 33,000 aircraft workers producing passenger aircraft.
'Our members are standing together to demand a contract that respects their work and ensures a secure future,' the union said in a statement.
Dan Gillan, general manager and senior Boeing executive in St. Louis, said in a statement that the company is 'focused on preparing for a strike.' He described the proposal as 'the richest contract offer' ever presented to the St. Louis union.
'No talks are scheduled with the union,' said Gillan, who is also vice president for Boeing Air Dominance, the division for the production of several military jets, including the U.S. Navy's Super Hornet, as well as the Air Force's Red Hawk training aircraft.
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UPI
27 minutes ago
- UPI
Boeing machinists who build fighter jets reject contract, plan strike
A large American flag is hoisted behind a Boeing F/A-18 E1 Super Hornet jet before dedication ceremonies at the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, Mo., on August 3, 2024. Machinists at three plants in the St. Louis area the product fight jets rejected a contract. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo July 27 (UPI) -- Several thousand Boeing union workers at three St. Louis-area plants who build fighter jets are planning to go on strike after rejecting a proposed contract Sunday that would pay an average of than $100,000 per year. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at Boeing factories in St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and Mascoutah in Illinois voted against the new contract that included a 20% wage increase over four years. The contract for District 837 members will expire at 11:59 p.m. CDT at which point there is a seven-day cooling-off period before a strike could start. In all, there are 16,000 employees at the three locations, according to St. Louis Business Journal Research. "IAM Union members delivered a clear message: the proposal from Boeing Defense fell short of addressing the priorities and sacrifices of the skilled IAM Union workforce," the union said in a news release. "Our members are standing together to demand a contract that respects their work and ensures a secure future." Boeing and the union representing the machinists on Thursday reached an agreement on a four-year contract that would boost annual salaries to $102,600 with an 8% increase in the first year and 4% for the other three years. "This contract puts money in members' pockets, protects healthcare access, and ensures our members have a voice in future health decisions all while respecting the skill and dedication IAM workers bring to Boeing's critical defense programs," IAM Union International President Brian Bryant said after the tentative contract. The total increase would be 40% when including other benfits. There was a $5,000 ratification bonus. Boeing said the current average hourly pay of $35 is $6 higher than three years ago. "The IAM Union remains committed to achieving a fair contract that meets the needs of our members," the union said. "The IAM Union looks forward to returning to the bargaining table with Boeing's leadership to deliver meaningful improvements that support the well-being and livelihoods of IAM members and their families." IAM, with approximately 600,000 active and retired workers, is one of North America's largest and most diverse industrial trade unions. They represent workers in aerospace/airlines, defense, shipbuilding, railroads/transit, healthcare and automotive in the United States and Canada. "We're disappointed our employees voted down the richest contract offer we've ever presented to IAM 837 which addressed all their stated priorities," Dan Gillian, Boeing Air Dominance vice President, said in a statement, obtained by KSDK-TV. "We've activated our contingency plan and are focused on preparing for a strike. No talks are scheduled with the union." Last year, Boeing machinists in the Pacific Northwest were in a 54-day strike that shut down airplane production. Ultimately, they agreed to an immediate pay boost of 13% and a total of 44% over four years when compounded. Boeing has more than 170,000 employees worldwide. The vote came two days before Boeing plans to announce its second-quarter earnings.
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
Why a great company's beat and raise was sold, and what I plan to do with the stock
When is a beat and raise not a beat and raise? That's a question that has frustrated us this earnings season. Case in point: How about Honeywell 's beat and raise last week? Here's a conglomerate splitting into three different companies, which also has a quantum computing business that's probably more advanced than any of the publicly traded quantum entities. Honeywell has an amazing aerospace business that handles the cockpit for most commercial airlines and a host of other accoutrements, including propulsion. It will very much participate in the aerospace boom and is only being held back by how many planes Boeing is allowed to make each month. That number will be going up soon. The automation business is about, among other things, industrial cybersecurity, smart grid, and regulated energy. There are underperforming divisions that if they are not fixed will be sold. The chemicals and materials businesses, including sustainable refrigerants, chemicals needed to make semiconductors and materials for carbon capture. Boring stuff but stuff that tends to be No. 1 in its category. The advanced materials business seems to be the legacy of Allied Chemical, which became Allied Signal, before merging with Honeywell. On last week's earnings call , management updated the timing on the breakup, saying the spinoff of advanced materials will happen in the fourth quarter. The other two are slated for the second half of 2026. At no point will these divisions be static. When there is something that can be done to make each better, it will be done, like the acquisition of Carrier 's global security business for $4.9 billion last year, a great price because Carrier needed to get to investment grade and did so by selling the division to Honeywell. Vimal Kapur, who became Honeywell's CEO in June 2023, takes after Dave Cote, the CEO before Darius Adamczyk. Cote is a legendary figure when it comes to creating value. I give you that history because Honeywell's stock, as of Friday's close, was down 0.7% year to date versus the S & P 500 's gain of 8.6% in 2025. Shares of Honeywell are trading nowhere near where they will trade as the split comes to fruition. Oddly, if it weren't breaking up, I think, at this point, it would trade higher than it does right now after that astonishing collapse last week based on, well, nothing. There was a margin issue in one division that will be fixed. There were two underperforming segments that will most likely go. There will be three companies that will either stand on their own or be bought by private equity, although the scarcity in aerospace company coupled with a pro-merger Federal Trade Commission will probably make that company a takeover target almost immediately. HON 1M mountain Honeywell 1-month performance While I have no idea why Honeywell's stock really collapsed, I can take the conspiratorial view, that some of the hedge funds who were short Kohl's decided to blow me up using a complex method of call buying and shorting. I know it seems phantasmagorical. But, when I started my Charitable Trust, whose holdings make up the CNBC Investing Club portfolio, I played open-handed and took fire quite often — even dealing with some who hinted that's exactly what they were doing. That's a dangerous game. I know what I am doing. I make mistakes, but a company like Honeywell — and Dover and DuPont , for that matter — are not among them. The Club owns all three. Another possible reason: Honeywell's structure could be too hard to understand. There are a huge number of divisions within divisions. You could ChatGPT these all day long and not figure out how they come together. But that's OK. That's what is being rectified by the planned split. But all of them are part of the reshoring and the reindustrialization of America. When you hear President Donald Trump getting $550 billion from the Japanese, Honeywell will get its share, whether it is from plane orders, or industrial buildings, or the myriad chemicals it takes to make things safely. Honeywell's split could be too far off. We call it spin purgatory , a period where nothing happens other than the back off separation of the divisions. Like with Honeywell, we're seeing that happen in DuPont, too, which trades like death. So, did Kenvue , when Johnson & Johnson spun it off. There's all of this red tape about new boards and new procedures that aren't everyday occurrences. No one can explain the length of time it takes. But it takes time and people aren't patient. They really want to wait until they see the whites of their separation eyes. It could also be the lack of real data center exposure. The only industrials that are working are the ones with data center exposure. While building automation within Honeywell has some, it is obviously not enough. What's my conviction based on then? How can I believe in Honeywell's stock, which does a beat and raise and it gets clobbered anyway; or that it has had a previous ones that were also poorly received, too? I give you a few reasons. First, discouragement is not a good quality to base an investment decision on. That's what I did with Emerson . It had two shortfalls, and I decided that its reorganization based around electrification wasn't going to work. I bolted after the second one. My total bad. They got it together even after a hostile bid that they won, and this very difficult to understand ugly duckling became a swan. I felt the same way with Oracle . The company had made a somewhat dispiriting acquisition of medical records company Cerner, and I had no idea what the hell that was about. Then it decided to get into data centers. Not once, but twice, they disappointed in their data center goal. I was livid. So, I kicked it out. It then ran higher. I had isolated two fantastic stock ideas. And, just when they got hammered a second time, I fled, right before they were recognized as great situations by everyone. I can't let that happen again. Curiously, the pain was the greatest after that second miss, when people were truly fed up. This one is the worst and, yet, I would argue it wasn't as bad a miss, if it were a miss at all. Second, people don't believe that Kapur can actually improve each of the three companies that are developing. They fear lost focus. They fear economic cycles. They fear that he is in the "wrong" industries even as private equity firms are routinely in the wrong industries, yet they are fine. Kapur knows how to multitask. Three, there is tremendous fright here in the way Honeywell stock trades, The moves are particularly vicious. They are from peak to trough, tremendously ugly, devoid of any support whatsoever. I wish I had an answer to this one. All I can say is that the decline has to be bought because the overreaction is ridiculous. I know when a stock is down nearly 14 points on a given day, as it was after Thursday's earnings print, it is typically not done going down. The selling from the previous day tends not to be finished. Too many sellers. And, that's what happened. Friday's opening hours were hideous as the sellers from Thursday finished. The stock market typically gives you clues about what a stock will do. When I find a stock breaking down as much as Honeywell, I know the queue to get out is a deep one and the process, if heavy institutional selling, means that a broker usually buys stock to work it by finding clients. If they can't be found you get what you got Thursday and Friday, the brokers just throw out what's left. Hence the Day 2 ugliness. Barring some craziness from the president, Honeywell is recharged and ready to go because, you see, it was a beat and raise. It was real — as will the next move. Bottom line So, what am I doing? Standing pat initially, waiting for my restrictions to run out. Remember, when I mention a stock on television, the Club must wait three days to trade it. Then, I am going to buy some because I am being given a chance to do so, like I did with Oracle and Emerson, and I didn't take them. Were they unique? Who knows? I do know this. I had done the work. I had conviction. Out of pique and frustration, I gave up. I am doing the opposite this time. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
4 hours ago
Boeing's fighter jet workers reject contract offer
Boeing Co. expects more than 3,200 union workers at three St. Louis-area plants that produce U.S. fighter jets to strike after they rejected a proposed contract Sunday that included a 20% wage increase over four years. The International Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said the vote by District 837 members was overwhelmingly against the proposed contract. The existing contract was to expire at 11:59 p.m. Central time Sunday, but the union said a 'cooling off' period would keep a strike from beginning for another week, until Aug. 4. Union leaders had recommended approving the offer, calling it a 'landmark' agreement when it was announced last week. Organizers said then that the offer would improve medical, pension and overtime benefits in addition to pay. The vote came two days before Boeing planned to announce its second quarter earnings, after saying earlier this month that it had delivered 150 commercial airliners and 36 military aircraft and helicopters during the quarter, up from 130 and 26 during the first quarter. Its stock closed Friday at $233.06 a share, up $1.79. The union did not say specifically why members rejected the contract, only that it 'fell short of addressing the priorities and sacrifices' of the union's workers. Last fall, Boeing offered a general wage increase of 38% over four years to end a 53-day strike by 33,000 aircraft workers producing passenger aircraft. 'Our members are standing together to demand a contract that respects their work and ensures a secure future,' the union said in a statement. Dan Gillan, general manager and senior Boeing executive in St. Louis, said in a statement that the company is 'focused on preparing for a strike.' He described the proposal as 'the richest contract offer' ever presented to the St. Louis union. 'No talks are scheduled with the union,' said Gillan, who is also vice president for Boeing Air Dominance, the division for the production of several military jets, including the U.S. Navy's Super Hornet, as well as the Air Force's Red Hawk training aircraft.
