Boeing shows why squeezing workers is reckless

When Covid-19 brought the US economy to a standstill in the spring of 2020, America's top executives called for a "national conversation" about the need for workers to return to work, warning of an "economic catastrophe" if they didn't.

- Nir Kaissar

I wrote at the time that a conversation we also needed to have was one about giving workers the security of a living wage.

So, when I read the news that Boeing's machinists had approved a new labor contract on Nov 4, locking in a hike of nearly 44 percent over four years, it was clear to me that the deal they struck was inevitable.

A shocking percentage of full-time workers in the US don't earn enough to raise a family, and that was true even before the recent spike in inflation made everything a lot more expensive. As much as two-thirds of full-time workers aged 25 and older can't cover the basic necessities for a family of four with one parent working, according to wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and living wage estimates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

It's this reality that has injected fresh vigor into labor action in recent years. Unions have scored first-time organizing wins at companies across industries, including at Starbucks, Apple, Wells Fargo, and Amazon, while picketing workers have won record pay increases in some cases. Boeing's is the latest victory, and expect more to follow as more workers refuse to show up for work that doesn't allow them to pay the bills.