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A Boeing strike is looking more likely. The union president expects workers to reject contract offer

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A Boeing strike is looking more likely. The union president expects workers to reject contract offer
News

News

A Boeing strike is looking more likely. The union president expects workers to reject contract offer

2024-09-11 01:04 Last Updated At:01:10

The risk of a strike at Boeing appears to be growing, as factory workers complain about a contract offer that their union negotiated with the giant aircraft manufacturer.

The president of the union local that represents 33,000 Boeing workers predicted that they will vote against a deal that includes 25% raises over four years and a promise that the company's next new airplane will be built by union members in Washington state.

“The response from people is, it’s not good enough,” Jon Holden, the president of the union local, told The Seattle Times newspaper.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in the Seattle area and machinists at other locations in Washington and California are scheduled to vote Thursday on the Boeing offer and, if they reject it, whether to go on strike beginning Friday.

Union members have gone on social media to complain about the deal. Hundreds protested during a lunch break at their plant in Everett, Washington, chanting, “Strike! Strike! Strike!” according to the Seattle Times.

Holden, who joined the union bargaining committee in unanimously endorsing the contract, told the newspaper he doesn’t believe he can secure the votes to ratify the proposed contract.

Boeing did not immediately respond when asked for comment.

Unlike strikes at airlines, which are very rare, a walkout at Boeing would not have an immediate effect on consumers. It would not result in any canceled flights. It would, however, shut down production and leave Boeing with no jets to deliver to the airlines that ordered them.

On Sunday, the company and the union local, IAM District 751, announced they had reached a tentative agreement that featured the 25% wage hike and would avoid a suspension of work on building planes, including the 737 Max and the larger 777 widebody jet.

The deal fell short of the union’s initial demand for pay raises of 40% over three years and restoration of traditional pensions that were eliminated in union concessions a decade ago. Workers would get $3,000 lump-sum payments, increased contributions to retirement accounts and the commitment about working on the next Boeing airplane.

Holden said in a message to members Monday, “We have achieved everything we could in bargaining, short of a strike. We recommended acceptance because we can’t guarantee we can achieve more in a strike.”

A strike would add to setbacks at Boeing. The company, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, has lost $27 billion since the start of 2019 and is trying to fix huge problems in both aircraft manufacturing and its defense and space business. A new CEO has been on the job a little over a month.

Boeing shares were down 3% in afternoon trading.

FILE - Cristina Green waves a towel to machinists and fellow union members for a "stop work meeting" and strike sanction at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, July 17, 2024. (Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times via AP, File)

FILE - Cristina Green waves a towel to machinists and fellow union members for a "stop work meeting" and strike sanction at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, July 17, 2024. (Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times via AP, File)

FILE - Boeing 737 MAX airplanes are shown on the assembly line during a media tour at the Boeing facility in Renton, Wash., June 25, 2024. (Jennifer Buchanan/The Seattle Times via AP, Pool, File)

FILE - Boeing 737 MAX airplanes are shown on the assembly line during a media tour at the Boeing facility in Renton, Wash., June 25, 2024. (Jennifer Buchanan/The Seattle Times via AP, Pool, File)

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2 sisters from Egypt were among those killed in Mexican army shooting

2024-10-05 01:36 Last Updated At:01:40

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — An 11-year-old Egyptian girl and her 18-year-old sister were among those killed after Mexican army troops opened fire on a truck carrying migrants earlier this week, an official said Friday.

The sisters, and four other migrants from countries including Peru and Honduras, were killed on Tuesday in the southern state of Chiapas.

An official in the state’s prosecutors office confirmed the identification of the two sisters and said their father was wounded in the shooting, but survived.

Federal officials, including newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum, again refused Friday to confirm the ages or genders of the six migrants killed in the shooting, which occurred on Sheinbaum’s first day in office.

Soldiers claimed they heard shots and returned fire and officials have studiously avoided saying the migrants were killed by army gunfire. However, that appears to be the case, and two soldiers have been relieved of duty and turned over to civilian prosecutors for questioning.

The killings placed in doubt Sheinbaum's statements over her first days in office that human rights will be at the forefront of her administration's policies.

Asked about her immigration policy Friday, Sheinbaum said only that the killings were under investigation and doubled down on earlier claims that the government doesn't violate human rights.

“First of all, human rights are respected,” Sheinbaum said. “That is very important, that is why it is called a humanistic immigration policy, because human rights are at the forefront.”

Three of the dead were from Egypt, and one each from Peru and Honduras. The other has apparently not yet been identified.

Ten other migrants were wounded in the shooting. but there has not been any information on their conditions.

Peru’s foreign ministry confirmed one Peruvian was killed and demanded “an urgent investigation” into the killings. Peru and Mexico have had damaged relations since a 2022 diplomatic spat.

It was the worst killing of migrants by authorities in Mexico since police in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants in 2021.

Sheinbaum has said the shootings are being investigated to see if any commanders might face punishment, and noted “a situation like this cannot be repeated.”

But she left out any mention of that Thursday at a ceremony at a Mexico City army base, where army and navy commanders pledged their loyalty to her in front of massed combat vehicles and hundreds of troops.

“In our country, there is not a state of siege, there are no violations of human rights,” Sheinbaum said, as she promised wage increases for soldiers and sailors.

The shootings Tuesday occurred near the city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala.

The Defense Department initially said that soldiers claimed to have heard shots as a convoy of three trucks passed the soldiers’ position.

The Attorney General’s Office later said all three trucks ignored orders to stop and tried to flee. The soldiers pursued them and reported coming under fire from the convoy, and returned fire.

One of the trucks eventually stopped, the driver reportedly fled, and a total of 33 migrants were found aboard, from the three countries already mentioned, as well as Nepal, Cuba, India and Pakistan.

The Defense Department said four of the migrants were found dead, and 12 wounded. Two of the wounded later died of their injuries. Sheinbaum refused to say whether any weapons were found in the migrants’ truck.

The area is a common route for smuggling migrants, who are often packed into crowded freight trucks. It has also been the scene of drug cartel turf battles, and the department said the trucks “were similar to those used by criminal groups in the region.”

Irineo Mujica, a migrant rights activist, said he doubted the migrants or their smugglers opened fire.

“It is really impossible that these people would have been shooting at the army,” Mujica said. “Most of the time, they get through by paying bribes.”

If the deaths were the result of army fire, as appears likely, it could prove a major embarrassment for Sheinbaum.

The new president has followed the lead of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in giving the armed forces extraordinary powers in law enforcement, state-run companies , airports, trains and construction projects.

It is not the first time Mexican forces have opened fire on vehicles carrying migrants in the area, which is also the object of cartel turf battles.

In 2021, the quasi-military National Guard opened fire on a pickup truck carrying migrants, killing one and wounding four. The Guard officers initially claimed some of those in the migrants’ truck were armed and had fired shots, but the governmental National Human Rights Commission later found that was not true.

And in 2021, state police in Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants and two Mexican citizens. Those officers also initially claimed to have come under fire from the migrants’ vehicles.

They argued they were responding to shots fired and believed they were chasing the vehicles of one of the country’s drug cartels, which frequently participate in migrant smuggling. But that later turned out to be false, and the police in fact burned the victims’ bodies in an attempt to cover up the crime.

Eleven of the policemen were convicted of homicide and sentenced to over 50 years in prison.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum shakes hands with National Guard officer Itzel Karina Valencia, right, during a troop review alongside Defense Minister Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, left, at Campo Marte in Mexico City, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum shakes hands with National Guard officer Itzel Karina Valencia, right, during a troop review alongside Defense Minister Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, left, at Campo Marte in Mexico City, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

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