About 3,200 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) went on strike on Aug. 4, and on Sept. 12 rejected a subsequent contract offer from Boeing. With no date set for Boeing and IAM to come back to the negotiating table, Boeing is interviewing prospective candidates to start taking what were once union jobs, said Dan Gillian, Boeing’s vice president of Air Dominance and senior executive at the St. Louis site. “We’ve had our first hiring event. We’ve received hundreds of qualified applicants. We’re working through that now,” he said in a Tuesday interview at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference. Gillian declined to provide specifics on how many permanent workers it intends to bring on and what jobs it will try to fill first, but said that “we certainly have some areas where we think we can more rapidly bring people online than in other areas.” “I won’t comment on specific job codes,” he added, “but we do think that based on the protracted nature of the strike, and per our contingency plans, now is the time to be making some of these decisions to begin bringing on additional staff.”

Boeing’s IAM workforce in St. Louis is overwhelmingly focused on its defense business, producing legacy fighters, several aircraft still in their development stages and a portion of its weapons portfolio. Those workers will also build the sixth-generation F-47 fighter, the first of which is currently being manufactured, according to the Air Force’s top general. Any new hires to the company’s defense unit will join the business at a pivotal moment. Boeing’s defense division has started to show signs of recovery from supply chain and technical challenges that’s cost billions in losses across numerous fixed-price aircraft development programs. At the same time, the company is ramping up production of the F-15EX, sunsetting the Super Hornet line, and standing up production of the F-47, with a sixth-generation Navy fighter contract potentially looming. The strike also comes as Boeing’s commercial arm refocuses on production quality following a 2024 incident where a door plug blew off the fuselage of a 737 MAX in mid-flight. The National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation found that “Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training, guidance and oversight” of its factory staff ultimately led to the incident, according to an executive summary of the report published in June. (Boeing responded at the time that it regretted the accident and was focusing on improving its safety culture.)

Gillian said that Boeing’s current offer, which includes a 24 percent general wage increase and 45 percent average wage growth, is a “compelling” deal that “represents a lot of respect” for the workers in St. Louis. However, he added that the company’s previous two-tier wage structure allowed wages to become “out of control relative to the market.” “I think my teammates should be paid at the very top of the scale. They build airplanes and weapon systems and all kinds of complex things that make sense for them to be paid at the very top of the scale,” he said. At the same time, “I have to balance that with the needs that our customers have and the economics of our business, and I think we’ve done that. And I remain open to talking about how to move things around, but the answer cannot be more.” Just an hour after the interview, the union held a press conference to discuss the ongoing strike. Informed of Gillian’s comments, Jody Bennett, IAM’s lead negotiator, didn’t mince words.

“Why don’t you ask Dan if they’ve ever presented a deal to a union that they didn’t say was a very good deal? Obviously, anything the company slides across, they’re going to say it’s a very good deal,” he said. “Our membership doesn’t think it’s a very good deal. Matter of fact, they rejected it. … So please feel free to ask him if he’s ever given a final offer in which he said, ‘Hey, you ought to turn this down because it’s not worth a shit.’” Boeing’s plans to hire permanent workers is damaging its relationship with its workforce, he said, adding that many machinists were considered essential personnel during the COVID pandemic and have years of experience that cannot be replaced by new hires. “What’s going to happen is they continue to push forward with replacement workers, they’re going to put their product at risk, in my estimation. … It’s hard to find people that can do this work, and when you do get people in and you get them trained, you certainly want to retain their expertise, because they’re very high skilled,” Bennett said. “They’re going to damage the reputation, plus they’re already sending a statement out to our folks by even talking about permanent replacement workers, that a lot of these folks are already talking about looking for other jobs elsewhere, because it’s pretty clear to them that Boeing doesn’t care about them.”

critical support to the US capitalist class in their heroic struggle to sabotage military production (by being too greedy to pay their workers, and trying to replace them with scabs who have nowhere near the level of expertise and knowledge of the ins-and-outs of the various planes)

Gillian said that any new employees hired permanently to take over union roles either already have aerospace manufacturing experience or will be trained by Boeing in the skills needed to successfully do the job. “We won’t compromise on that,” he said. “I also appreciate our partnership with the Defense Contract Management Agency, who is helping with their second set of eyes to make sure that we’re doing things the right way, and I am very confident that the product we’re delivering to our customer meets the highest standard that we have.” Although both Gillian and Bennett indicated that they are willing to restart negotiations to work out a contract agreement, the path forward remains unclear. Last week, IAM members ratified their own proposed deal, which was developed without Boeing’s input. According to Bennett, the union proposal differs from Boeing’s offer in three ways. The proposal keeps wage increases the same as Boeing’s offer, but makes some changes to allow for growth at the top of the pay scale. It increases Boeing’s match on St. Louis workers’ retirement accounts to be at the same level as its union employees in the Pacific Northwest, and it bumps the ratification bonus from $4,000 to $10,000. Gillian said that from Boeing’s perspective, the union’s proposal is “way beyond the economics of what we put on the table” and “isn’t real” because it was not a result of collective bargaining between the company and IAM leadership.

Impacts To Aircraft Production

During a July earnings call, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg downplayed the impacts of a potential strike, saying that one wouldn’t reach the magnitude of last year’s machinist strike in Seattle, which lasted about two months and cost Boeing, its suppliers and its customers about $9.6 billion. “The order of magnitude of this is much, much less than what we saw last fall. That was roughly 30,000 machinists,” he said. “So we’ll manage through this. I wouldn’t worry too much about the implications of the strike.” Steve Parker, the chief executive of Boeing’s defense unit, declined to comment Tuesday when asked whether the strike could lead to additional losses on fixed-price defense contracts in Boeing’s third quarter. Even with the ongoing strike, Boeing has been able to keep deliveries of its Joint Direct Attack Munitions roughly at the same pace they were prior to the strike and has continued to deliver F-15EXs and F/A-18s, with Gillian stating that from the customer’s perspective, those aircraft deliveries are “coming about as expected.”

by “coming about as expected” they apparently mean “coming in with glaring reliability issues” https://hexbear.net/post/6018345/6471687

As part of its contingency plan, Boeing has qualified some of its managers to perform work on the production line and brought on temporary workers “to add capacity,” he said. Nonetheless, the production pace for programs like the F-15EX has slowed. “Definitely not having everybody at work every day has an impact down throughout the production system on something like an F-15, and through our contingency plans, we’re working to mitigate that as much as possible, and we are able to continue delivering airplanes. I’d say we are slowing our rate ramp increase a bit as a result of that.” Boeing planned to increase F-15EX production from one to two aircraft a month by the end of 2026, Flight Global reported earlier this year. Asked whether Boeing would be able to keep to that timeline, Gillian said the company would not be able to forecast the timing for the ramp up until the end of the strike. However, he added that the company has been working to incorporate additional process and engineering improvements during the strike in the hopes of increasing efficiency when workers do return. “I’m optimistic that those improvements will help me meet those rate ramp requirements in front of me,” he said.

Prime Minister Mark Carney recently walked a gauntlet of parked military gear while visiting Canadian and allied troops in Latvia. All of it was spit and polish, some draped in camouflage and looking showroom ready, if not somewhat menacing. It was an impressive, seemingly substantive, display of combat power. If only he’d known what it probably took to get those tanks, armoured vehicles, howitzers and other pieces of kit onto the concrete vehicle park.

The Canadian battlegroup, the nucleus of the NATO brigade in Latvia, has been suffering through a critical — and in some cases crippling — shortage of spare parts that has regularly sidelined vehicles, CBC News has learned. A recent internal briefing, a copy of which was obtained by CBC News, shows the vehicle off road (VOR) rate for the Canadian contingent in the Baltic country has been “high” and that it even affected a recent training exercise. The factors forcing the army to park vehicles include Canadian “supply chain issues, parts backlog” and the new “compressed” training regime, which has seen troops complete their combined arms training in Latvia, rather than in Canada, said the internal briefing.

During a recent brigade-level training, known as Exercise Strike, which took place alongside other NATO allies this summer, the Canadian mechanized infantry company, Leopard tank squadron, combat support units and headquarters were considered combat ineffective (CBT IE) because of the off-road rate, said the undated briefing. The slide deck said the affected equipment included LAV 6 light armoured vehicles, Leopard 2A4s (the roughly three-decade-old main battle tanks), command-and-control vehicles and utility vehicles including the trucks that tow howitzers. Due to the high rate of vehicles not being available, “more than 150 personnel” were left out of battle (LOB) or unable to participate in the training exercise. That represented more than 30 per cent of the Canadian personnel involved in the drill, said the briefing. The Canadian commander of the NATO brigade acknowledged there are issues with spare parts and used Leopard tanks as an example.

“Spare parts directly contribute to the serviceability of the tanks that are here. So, we have not completely squared that away,” said Col. Kris Reeves. He said the Canadian contingent has the “priority of parts that are available in the Canadian system” and must be ready to fight at all times. Reeves said he hopes the issue will be sorted out within a year, and that Defence Minister David McGuinty told him that “he’s actively working on it.”

Supply system challenges

Part of the $9.3 billion in defence spending announced this summer by the Liberal government is earmarked for improving the stock of spares throughout the military. During last week’s Latvia visit, McGuinty acknowledged they are trying to fix the problem as quickly as possible for the entire military. “We went looking for the money needed to continue the investments needed, and we are thinking about the whole question of how we buy the parts, how we purchase the necessary materials and how we continue it quickly and together,” McGuinty said. But it is not just a question of filling up the stock bins. The system itself needs an overhaul. Parts for the German-manufactured Leopard 2A4s come from Europe. But because of the military supply chain, those parts have to first go to Canada before they are shipped back to Europe for use in the brigade.

The absence of spare parts for the Leopard 2A4s has been a long-established, well-documented issue for not only Canada but other allies who use the old fighting vehicle. It became a major, almost intractable, issue for Ukraine after tanks donated by allies broke down or were damaged in battle and parts were almost impossible to find. “This is not acceptable,” said retired lieutenant-general and former Liberal MP Andrew Leslie. Canadian troops have been deployed in Latvia for several years and the crisis in Eastern Europe kicked into high gear with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. “By now, for heaven’s sake, we should have figured out how to keep our troops in harm’s way with the right levels of equipment, with the right levels of spare and ammunition, supplies,” said Leslie, former commander of the Canadian Army.

Decades of underfunding is partly to blame. But more recently, Leslie said the Trudeau government’s plan to give more money to the military for equipment, while forcing the Defence Department to cut elsewhere, has exacerbated the problem. “You’ve gotta get your act together because it’s not happening right now,” said Leslie. Alan Williams, who was in charge of the Defence Department’s purchasing branch in the early 2000s, also condemned the shortages and said there’s been plenty of time to sort out the issue. He said it has become custom at the department to cut what’s known as national procurement funding, the pot of money that pays for — among other things — inventories and replacement stocks. During the former Conservative government’s drive to cut the deficit in the 2012-14 timeframe, that line item took an enormous hit and wasn’t fully restored by the Liberals. The policy of buying equipment but then not setting aside enough money for maintenance and repairs is a disservice to the public and the troops, Williams said. “It really pisses me off, you know, because our guys deserve the best equipment properly maintained,” said Williams. “Don’t play games. You don’t say you’re going to provide them with these things and then shortchange them on the money so that they can’t deliver with it. It’s insulting and our guys and gals deserve a lot better.”

The humanitarian mission trying to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza was the victim of new attacks, which they denounce are for psychological warfare and intimidation. The Global Sumud Flotilla, made up of 50 boats carrying humanitarian aid bound for Gaza, denounced on Tuesday that it was the target of nine drone attacks that targeted five ships, while they were sailing in the Mediterranean Sea south of the Greek island of Crete.

Spanish journalist Néstor Prieto, who is aboard the flotilla, reported that they activated a drone protocol, after about twenty of them began to fly over the flotilla.

Prieto reported that initially, the drones carried out surveillance tasks, carrying out sweeps at different heights. However, shortly after the attacks began, with at least nine impacts documented in videos broadcast on social networks.

The journalist noted that the attacks appear to follow a pattern of psychological warfare, with sound bomb detonations in the air and water, designed to frighten and disable boats, rather than to cause lethal damage.

The most recent of the attacks would have caused damage to the masts of one of the ships, although the information is still confusing due to the effects that the flotilla’s telecommunications are suffering, which force them to constantly change radio channels, according to Prieto.

Explosions, unidentified drones and communications jamming. We are witnessing these psychological operations firsthand, right now, but we will not be intimidated. The lengths to which Israel and its allies will go to prolong the horrors of starvation and Genocide in Gaza are…

— Global Sumud Flotilla Commentary (@GlobalSumudF) September 23, 2025

Although the origin of the drones is unknown at the moment, the pattern of attack points to Israel or related groups, according to the journalist’s report. At 2:27 a.m. local Greek time, drones continued to fly over the boats, including the Al Awda ship.

“Our determination is stronger than ever. These tactics will not deter us from our mission to deliver aid to Gaza and break the illegal siege. Any attempt to intimidate us only reinforces our commitment. We will not be silenced. We will continue sailing,” the participants of the flotilla assured on social networks.

The initiative is part of a global effort to challenge the Israeli siege, denouncing the critical humanitarian situation in Gaza and demanding an end to the genocide.