Boeing machinists voting on contract
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KAI RYSSDAL: We’ve got a better idea today of the damage that was done to the Gulf Coast’s oil infrastructure. Not too much. Production’s expected to be back up to 100 percent sooner rather than later. Which helps explain why oil hit a five-month low at one point this afternoon.
Airline stocks rose on the oil drop. The airplane maker Boeing did fine, considering. It’s waiting for the result of a key contract vote by its biggest union tomorrow. Danielle Karson reports.
Danielle Karson: Boeing says the 300-page agreement is its final offer. Spokesman Tom Healy calls it the best contract in the industry.
Tom Healy: It rewards employees for the success that the company’s had. We’ve had three strong years selling airplanes. They’ve earned it; they deserve it; and that’s what this offer does.
The contract would bump up wages 11 percent and pensions more than 14 percent over three years. Marick Masters, an analyst at the University of Pittsburgh, says the contract is generous, but …
Marick Masters: These workers want a share of the record profits. They look at it as them having made a good deal of effort to make Boeing in the situation that it’s in today, and they’re asking for their fair share.
Analysts say a strike would hurt Boeing’s delivery schedule of government contracts. A strike could also cost the company $100 million a day in revenue.
In Washington, I’m Danielle Karson for Marketplace.
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