I strongly denounce the sellout contract being forced upon 33,000 Boeing machinists by the International Association of Machinists (IAM) apparatus. Workers must vote NO on this contract, which meets none of their demands for higher wages, pension restoration, or job security. This is not just a bad deal—it is a direct attack on the working class, orchestrated by Boeing, the IAM bureaucrats, and the US government to break the strike and continue the flow of profits to the corporate elite.
The fight at Boeing requires a new strategy, based on a rebellion against the IAM bureaucracy, which never wanted the strike and which has tried to soften workers up on the picket line with starvation level strike pay before announcing a snap vote. The information meeting held by IAM L. 751 was a sham, with union officials dodging and dismissing workers' questions.
As the Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee declared in a statement Monday: “We must fight for the principle that the rank and file holds absolute authority, not union officials rubbing elbows with management and government officials.”
The struggle at Boeing is about far more than one company or one contract. It is a battle against a broader war being waged by the corporate and financial oligarchy against workers across the country and around the world. This is a wartime contract, with Boeing a major defense contractor, and it is being imposed as the US escalates its imperialist wars abroad. President Biden, through Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, has intervened to broker this deal, just as it intervened to shut down the recent strike by dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts. The goal is to break the Boeing strike and secure the company’s supply chains for war.
As US imperialism prepares for war with Iran, and escalates its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the Biden-Harris administration cannot allow major defense contractors like Boeing to face disruption.
Workers at Boeing are not just fighting for better wages and conditions—they are on the front lines of a global struggle against war and exploitation. The corporate ruling class sees the growing wave of strikes in the US as a threat to their plans for global war. This is why the White House, union bureaucracies, and corporations are all working together to shut down this powerful strike.
Two weeks before the US presidential election, neither of the two main capitalist parties is addressing the real issues facing workers. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks only of her so-called 'opportunity economy,' a pro-business agenda that offers nothing to workers, while remaining silent on the escalating wars abroad and the attacks on workers at home. Donald Trump, meanwhile, engages in fascistic attacks on immigrants, aimed at dividing the working class along national and racial lines. He increasingly targets what he calls the “enemy within”—by which he means the working class itself.
This sellout contract is just the latest in a long line of betrayals by the union bureaucracy. Workers at UPS, in the auto industry, and in the railroads have faced the same pattern of union leaders pushing through pro-company contracts--hailed by the White House--despite overwhelming opposition from the rank and file. The same union bureaucrats who are trying to push this deal at Boeing have shut down the strike at Textron and isolated the struggle by workers at Boeing parts supplier Eaton to prevent workers from uniting their struggles and fighting together.
The fight at Boeing reveals a fundamental truth about capitalism: it is a system designed to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful, at the expense of the vast majority. Workers create the wealth that sustains society, but the capitalists reap the profits. At Boeing, as at many other companies, workers face relentless pressure to increase productivity, while their wages stagnate and their jobs are constantly threatened. Meanwhile, the executives and shareholders grow richer by the day.
Boeing’s announcement of 17,000 layoffs is a declaration of war on its workers. The company is seeking to replace highly skilled machinists with low-paid, disposable labor, ensuring that its profits continue to grow even as it cuts corners on safety and quality. This will inevitably lead to more disasters like the fatal crashes of Boeing’s 737 MAX jets, which killed hundreds of people. The company’s reckless pursuit of profit over safety is directly tied to the same forces driving its war profiteering.
But Boeing workers are not alone. Across the globe, workers are fighting back against similar attacks. In Brazil, workers at Boeing’s rival, Embraer, have rejected a sellout contract. Airbus workers in Europe are fighting mass layoffs. Eaton workers from Britain to Michigan are carrying out strikes against the same corporate attacks on their wages and conditions. The growing rebellion among workers, reflected in contract rejections and strike actions, shows that workers are ready to fight. What they need is a strategy to win.
The Socialist Equality Party calls on Boeing workers to reject the IAM’s betrayal and organize independently of the union bureaucrats. Rank-and-file committees must take control of the strike, demanding full oversight of contract negotiations, tripling of strike pay to sustain the struggle, and the mobilization of other sections of workers, including Seattle educators and dockworkers, behind their fight. This is the only way to defeat Boeing’s efforts to break the strike and to stop the company’s war profiteering.
The fight at Boeing is not just about wages and pensions—it is a fight for control over society’s wealth. Workers at Boeing, and workers everywhere, must demand the nationalization of Boeing and other major corporations, placing them under the democratic control of the working class. The wealth created by workers must be used to meet social needs, not to line the pockets of billionaires or fuel imperialist wars.
This fight is part of the broader struggle against capitalism, a system that offers workers nothing but exploitation, war, and inequality. The working class must unite across national borders, reject the false “national unity” of imperialist war, and fight for socialism—the reorganization of society based on human need, not profit. Only by taking power into their own hands can workers stop the endless cycle of exploitation and war that capitalism imposes.
Vote NO on the sellout contract! Fight for rank-and-file control! Unite with workers internationally in the fight for socialism!