What would it take to vote 'yes?' Boeing factory workers weigh in
If the current negotiations between Boeing and union leaders this week results in a new contract offer, how members vote will have much to do with their current human circumstances.
As talks entered their third day Thursday, people on the factory floor expressed intense interest in the unfolding situation.
For Ethan Nichols, an Everett flight line inspector and Machinist member, the key element is health insurance.
His wife and children all suffer from a congenital heart condition known as Long QT syndrome, and the family depends on good medical coverage to pay for the multiple open-heart surgeries they have required.
Nichols, who lives in the town of Newport, on the eastern edge of Washington, weekly drives to work at Boeing in Everett for the insurance package.
“For me, the insurance is a huge portion of it,” he said. “With this last contract proposal, they were going to decrease medical coverage and charge us more, that’s the quick and dirty of it.”
Other members also are thinking over different scenarios, such as if Boeing insisted on ending pensions for new hires, but left current workers with full pension and other benefits, which was essentially the package that the engineering union, Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, reluctantly accepted this spring.
Nichols said he could see a package passing without pensions for new hires if other aspects of the current contract were restored.
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