ST. LOUIS — Boeing Co. machinists backed a new labor deal Sunday that seeks to give the aerospace company a stronger hand to compete for new business by, in part, offering buyouts to veteran workers and lowering top pay for future hires.
Machinists District 837 President Gordon King said the 1,269-to-449 vote to accept the contract extension would put Boeing in a better position to bid for projects this spring and reduce the need for layoffs in the short term.
Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers reached a tentative deal last Wednesday. King told reporters after Sunday’s vote that the new contract would allow longtime union workers to leave “with a healthy retirement” and give younger workers job security.
As part of the deal, wage increases and bonuses are locked in until mid-2022 — a 7.5-year extension of the current pact. Eligible employees are scheduled to receive an $8,000 signing bonus within 30 days of the ratification vote, according to a summary of the deal.
Boeing Co. officials praised the union after the vote.
“Not only does it better position us to compete, but it also ensures that our highly skilled IAM-represented employees, those with us today and in the future, are appropriately compensated for their important work,” said Boeing St. Louis site executive Bill Schnettgoecke.
Boeing workers in the St. Louis area build the F/A-18 and F-15 fighters and the EA-18G electronic attack aircraft, along with other programs. But the F/A-18 Super Hornet program is set to end in 2016 unless there are more orders.
The contract ratified Sunday covers 2,400 Boeing aerospace employees in St. Louis; China Lake, Calif.; and Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., King said.
Boeing officials said Sunday that the company hoped to bid for work extending those lines or including new projects, and that extending the Machinists’ contract puts the company in a more competitive position.
The deal sets up a two-tier wage structure. Employees hired after March 1 in many job classifications would see their wages top out at levels 8 percent to 49 percent below the top wages now earned by workers in the same classes.
