Video: Boeing machinists walk out on strike

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EVERETT, Wash. - Striking Boeing Co. production workers hunkered down Saturday for what could be a long, bruising battle with costly repercussions for both sides.

Greeted by friendly honking from passing vehicles, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers responded with cheering and blasts from handheld air horns Saturday at plants from Frederickson to Everett as cloudy skies gave way to warm and sunny weather.

About 27,000 Boeing machinists walked off the job just after midnight after talks broke down between the union and the company. No new talks are scheduled.

Every day on the picket lines costs the company money, but it's a price the machinists say they can afford.

"I've been here 31 years," said Diana Dishneau. "And I've been on five strikes, but this is the most meaningful to me.

Dishneau worked 72 days straight on Boeing airplane cabin interiors. She's spending her first day off on the picket lines.

Boeing helped Dishneau put her two kids through college. Now she's worried Boeing will leave her stranded as she looks towards retiring. She claims that under the company's current contract offer her monthly expenses for medications alone would increase nearly seven times.

"We're mainly after what's rightly ours - the benefits that we used to have," she said. "They're taking them away more and more every contract."

How long are workers used to receiving some of the top blue-collar wages in the Puget Sound area prepared to go without pay?

"As long as it takes," said Scott Robertson, who works in final assembly of 737s in Renton, adding that he has money saved up to last three months.

"It's been about lack of respect," said Steve Morrison, 42, a tester in Everett plant. "They always tell us we're valued much but labor is the first out the door, the first to be outsourced."

The Machinists, representing about 25,000 workers in the Puget Sound area, 1,500 in the Portland, Ore. area and about 750 in Wichita, Kan., began picketing with the expiration of a 48-hour contract extension that had been requested by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and a federal mediator.

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Diana Dishneau claims that under Boeing's current contract offer, her monthly expenses for medications alone would increase nearly seven times. She spent Saturday on the picket lines.

Negotiations with the aid of a federal mediator during the unusual post-strike vote extension failed to resolve the dispute over pay, outsourcing, retirement benefits, health care provisions and other issues.

Union members who assemble Boeing's commercial planes and some key components voted 80 percent Wednesday to reject Boeing's final three-year contract offer and 87 percent to go on strike.

Union leaders said Boeing did not present a comprehensive new offer during the last-ditch talks. Scott Carson, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the two sides were too far apart to reach agreement in time to prevent a walkout.

It's the first time the union has struck in consecutive contract cycles at Boeing and the shortest period -- three years -- between walkouts. The union was on strike for 24 days in 2005.

The company said it would not try to assemble planes during the strike.

Boeing's commercial airplane operations, based in the Seattle area, have led a resurgence by the company over the past two years amid heavy orders for the much-awaited and increasingly delayed 787.

Analysts have said a strike could cost Boeing about $100 million a day in deferred revenue. During the last strike, Boeing was unable to deliver more than two dozen airplanes on schedule.

As of July Boeing reported a backlog of airplane orders totaling $346 billion.