Employees want better wages, pensions and healthcare from Boeing, the aerospace giant that has faced a number of safety scandals this year.
Workers at Boeing voted on Thursday to go on strike, with 33,000 machinists laying down their tools from midnight Pacific Time on Friday (8AM CEST).
The action comes as a fresh blow to the aircraft maker, that is currently facing both financial and reputational challenges.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said that its members had rejected a contract that would have raised pay by 25% over four years.
The union added that 94.6% had voted in favour of rejecting the contract, while 96% had voted in favour of the strike. Only a two-thirds majority was required for the action to go ahead.
“This is about respect, this is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting our future,” IAM District 751 President Jon Holden said while announcing the vote.
Machinists are bitter about stagnant wages and concessions they made since 2008 on pensions and healthcare to prevent the company from moving jobs elsewhere.
Very little has gone right for Boeing this year, from a panel blowing out in one of its passenger jets in January to NASA leaving two astronauts in space rather than sending them home on a problem-plagued Boeing spacecraft.
As long as the strike continues, Boeing will be deprived of much-needed cash that it gets from delivering new planes to airlines.
That will be another challenge for the organisation’s CEO, who was given the job of turning around the company that lost more than $25 billion (€23 billion) in the last six years.
