Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.
13.09.2024 - 08:56 / skift.com / Gordon Smith / Kelly Ortberg
Boeing’s already fragile airliner production chain is facing renewed jeopardy. Late on Thursday, workers overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal agreed between union representatives and company management. More than 30,000 unionized staff in Washington and Oregon are now on strike.
Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) turned down a package that included a 25% pay rise.
The affected sites produce some of Boeing’s most important planes including the 737 Max and the larger 777 widebody jet. Employees downed tools at midnight Pacific Time on Friday in the first strike of its kind in 16 years.
The strike is a huge blow to Boeing and comes just weeks after Kelly Ortberg was appointed its new CEO. In the days leading to the vote, Ortberg toured local production facilities and met with workers on the factory floor.
As part of a last-minute rallying call to staff, the CEO said: “I ask you not to sacrifice the opportunity to secure our future together, because of the frustrations of the past.”
In a video message to staff on Sunday, Stephanie Pope, President of Boeing Commercial Airplanes highlighted the benefits of the package: “The contract offer provides the largest-ever general wage increase, lower medical cost share to make healthcare more affordable, greater company contributions toward your retirement, and improvements for a better work-life balance.”
Pope also committed to building Boeing’s next-generation plane – often dubbed the ‘797’ – in the Pacific Northwest. The planemaker has another major production site in South Carolina, however this facility is non-unionized.
In a statement, the IAM described the “unwavering solidarity of our membership.” The union said it will “regroup and begin planning the next steps on securing an agreement that our membership can approve.”
The IAM said 94% of its members voted to reject the contract, with 96% voting for strike action.
The high-stakes labor dispute is the latest headache for the U.S. planemaker.
Boeing’s reputation was seriously damaged by two deadly crashes involving the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019. A further accident in January 2024 saw a door plug on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 plane blow-out in midair. While there were no casualties, it led to the temporary grounding of the type and renewed scrutiny of Boeing’s production oversight.
In June, the National Transportation Safety Board sanctioned Boeing after the company shared “non-public investigative information” with the media. The planemaker later acknowledged that some of its comments had “overstepped the NTSB’s role.”
Ortberg and his team will likely have 2008 in their minds. This was the last time Boeing faced a major labor negotiation with the IAM.
Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.
Another wave of hotel strikes unfurled in two major New England cities Tuesday, while one in Southern California continues to grip a Hilton-affiliated property.
Delta Air Lines cut its third-quarter revenue forecast due to the CrowdStrike outage that caused the carrier to cancel thousands of flights.
Allegiant Air hopes to introduce its first Boeing 737 MAX 8-200 in November after more than a year of delays, CEO Gregory Anderson said Tuesday.
Officials from Boeing announced that key production milestones for its 737 MAX airplanes would be delayed by around six months.
Air Canada is planning to cancel scores of flights in the coming days as it faces an imminent pilot walkout.
For those who have visited Rome’s immensely popular Trevi Fountain, here’s a bit of news that may seen long overdue.Leaders in Rome are contemplating limiting access to the historic fountain, which is not only a baroque masterpiece, but also a magnet for hordes of rank and file travelers, Instagram influencers, TikTokers, and more.The plans being considered would involve visitors making a reservation in advance to visit the fountain, according to a report in The Guardian.“Personally I would be in favour of looking at a new form of access, limited and timed, to the Trevi fountain,” Alessandro Onorato, the city councillor responsible for tourism, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera, per The Guardian.Residents of course, would still be allowed to visit the fountain and do so for free. But everyone else would be required to make a contribution of one to two euros in exchange for the ability to spend time taking in the masterpiece.The goal of the entrance fee is not to raise money, but to use the new system as a mechanism to control the crush of people that surround the fountain from sunup until sundown, and long into the evening. The new system would also (hopefully) bring an end to such disrespectful behaviors as snacking on pizza and gelato while perched on the fountain.The paid reservation system is merely one of the options the city is considering to protect the historic site.Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said measures to curb tourist numbers were “a very concrete possibility,” adding that a handful of possible solutions are under review.“We’ve decided to study and investigate this because the situation is becoming technically very difficult to manage,” he said. “Local police officers tell us this all the time: there is a concentration of people that makes adequate protection of the monument difficult and is also often a source of degradation.”The discussion surrounding how best to protect the fountain is especially pressing as the city prepares to host the 2025 jubilee, which is a year-long Roman Catholic event that is expected to bring more than 30 million tourists and pilgrims to Rome.But this latest move, which is among a growing number of efforts to curb overtourism around the world, is also prompted by a history of tourists behaving poorly at the fountain.In 2017, for instance, the city rolled out fines for bad behavior at the site after tourists began frolicking in the fountain water. And in 2018, an eight-person fight broke out over, of all things, the perfect selfie spot.
Visiting Japan will get slightly more complex in the coming years.The country is preparing to introduce a new travel authorization system in 2030 that will require visitors to declare personal information online in order to obtain permission to enter the country, Japan Today has reported.The new system is not all that unlike what the United States uses for foreign visitors, according to media reports. Individuals seeking to visit the United States, for instance, must use the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which was rolled out as an anti-terrorism security measure.ESTA is used to assess whether a traveler is eligible to visit the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program, before the individual gets on a plane to come here.In a similar fashion, the new program being introduced for those seeking to visit Japan, dubbed JESTA, is also meant to screen individuals before they embark on a journey to Japan, per Japan Today.Introduction of the JESTA program in Japan marks a departure from the easy breezy process visitors from 71 visa-exempt countries have experienced for years. Those from visa-exempt countries have historically been able to make short-stay visits without requiring any visa documents.The Japanese government has said their goal is to reduce the entry of illegal immigrants who come from visa-exempt countries and stay longer than is allowed.Data from the Japanese government shows that of the 49,801 illegal short-term visitors to the country in January 2016, more than 28,000 arrived from visa-exempt countries and regions, according to Japan Today.Under the forthcoming JESTA program, visa-exempt foreign travelers will be required to declare their purpose of entry and place of stay online for screening by immigration officials before getting on a plane to come to Japan.And in cases where the online application is flagged for risk of illegal stay, the individual will not be approved to visit Japan. Instead, the traveler will be encouraged to obtain a formal visa through their local embassy in order to visit.The Japanese government will continue researching the proposed JESTA program over the coming year.
Over the busy Labor Day weekend, at least 10,000 unionized front-desk workers, housekeepers and other employees at dozens ofhotel properties across the country walked off the job after failing to come to an agreement in contract negotiations.
The onboard experience on some American Airlines jets is about to get much better.
Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.
Taiwan-based airline EVA Air is planning to bring suite-style, business-class seats to dozens of its wide-body jets for the first time. At the same time, the carrier is also eyeing an expansion to three new U.S. cities.