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Comment on Boeing offers staff 25% pay hike in bid to avoid strike

JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Every time some headline comes out with significant increases, it always turns out to be ‘over x years’.

This isn’t a 25% raise, it’s taking Boeing at their word they will give 6.25% every year only for the next four. Six percent doesn’t cover the inflated costs of anything anymore, let alone allow for wealth building or retirement saving.

These people would never strike again if they got a real 25% raise and a guaranteed bump equal to twice the inflation in the years to come. But as always, when the C suite’s horizon is only as far as next quarter, the people are seen merely as an expense - not an investment.

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homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s been about 3.2% all year, and with the very notable exception of 2021/2022 Covid-gouging years, it was more like 1.5%

6.25% per year sounds pretty good.

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- Soup@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The problem, usually, is that that number is an average from a variety of different areas of life. If you can expect to make purchases from all those places at once then it’s mostly fine but that’s not what happens.
  
  Instead, housing and food shoot through the fucking roof, especially housing where a lot of people tend to live. Once the solution is “move far away from your community just to be able to afford a home” then that solution is basically just invalid. Luxury goods don’t up nearly as fast, they have real competition and people can, usually, not buy those products so there needs to be some level of sanity there. You end up with a situation where poor people end up experiencing a rate of inflation far higher and more stressful than the average implies. And guess what? Most people are poor these days, even the ones who’d like to not believe it.
  
  And then you add on to that that if your company does not give you a raise based on inflation by default then even if they match it and pat themselves on the back you did not recieve a raise. Matching inflation or less means that you’ve lost salary even if the number is technically higher. You only get a raise when your buying power exceeds the year before.
  
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  - kautau@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Right, Grocery prices for example have increased by 25 percent over the past four years, outpacing overall inflation of 19 percent during the same period
    
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- Honytawk@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It isn’t per year though, it only lasts 4.
  
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  - homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Then they negotiate again, I assume?
    
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Hildegarde@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Most of what you have said is wrong.

It is a four year contract. The parties negotiated the rates for the next four years, once the contract is ratified it is binding. Boeing will be required to pay according to the wage scale. Its not boeing’s word, its a contract and the union has remidies if boeing violates the terms if the contract. This is how most union contracts work. Wage changes are spread out over the term of the contract. This is normal.

Also the raise is not 6.25% per year. That’s not how percentages work. The average would be 5.8% as annual percentage raises are cumulative. If they negotiated a 6.25% annual raise they would have a 27% raise over the term of the contract.

It is deliberately misleading to report raises for the life of the contract. It makes the win sound better in the headline than it is.

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- JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I realize the math is marginally inaccurate - precision wasn’t really the goal of what I wrote. We’re on the same page so far as the disingenuous headline goes.
  
  Where we disagree I suppose is the contract being binding. You’re right of course, from a legal perspective, a signed contract is an agreement that must be upheld. When I wrote that it was taking Boeing at its word, I was leaning more into a possibility of leadership changing their minds.
  
  As a hypothetical example:
  Two years down the line the executives decide to ‘review’ the contracts and determine an alternative understanding of the principles of the agreement which leads to them reverting to the previous payscale. Then the union threatens to strike again, legal action might ensue, maybe months go by of back and forth with the corporation dragging their metaphorical feet at every opportunity. Eventually this ends up in court with Boeing being told to quit the shit and pay what they agreed, maybe plus 5% as a ‘pemalty’ for bad faith operation. Finally, the agreed upon payscale resumes with backpay, plus that 5%. Workers aren’t exactly happy, but they aren’t angry anymore. All the while, those extra tens of millions were sitting somewhere, collecting interest for Boeing. By the time it all gets straightened out and they accept a fine, they’ve made an extra few million. At the end of the quarter, or the year, the executives that set out on this path take a generous bonus.
  
  All I was really getting at by commenting about the contract was that corporate greed exists - in Boeing of all places this is a certainty.
  
  Giant companies pull these maneuvers all the time at the expense of the people they employ, their own customers, or both. I don’t think most of what I wrote was wrong. Inaccurate maybe? I can live with that.
  
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  - Hildegarde@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    your hypothetical shows a complete lack of understanding.
    
    if they do these things all the time as you say, you would have a real example rather than a purely hypothetical one.
    
    your delusional fantasy is not reality
    
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    JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Hahaha cheers mate for the laugh. Didn’t realize I was wasting my time with you.
    
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