Boeing workers frustrated, angry at strike delay

Factory employees who showed up to work said about half of the workers did not come in for their assigned shifts and one mechanic reported that there was damage to bathroom fixtures and cash machines inside the production facility.

A Boeing spokesman declined to comment on activity at its plants on Thursday, but he said the company believed a resolution was possible by Friday at midnight when the 48-hour deadline extension lapses.

The International Association of Machinists (IAM), Boeing's largest labor union, shocked rank-and-file members by agreeing to postpone the strike at the behest of U.S. federal mediators even after 87 percent of its members voted to walk off the job at midnight on Wednesday.

"It's pointless to delay this for 48 hours. The momentum is gone," said Don Grinde, 51, a Boeing crane operator, who has been picketing since last night outside the plant where Boeing makes its 747, 767, 777 and the upcoming 787 aircraft.

He was one of seven or eight union members walking outside the factory gates, holding signs that read: "87 percent vote strike, no contract, no work."

A walkout would mark the fourth strike in 20 years for the IAM, which represents nearly 27,000 Boeing workers based mostly in the company's commercial plane plants in the Seattle area.

Some workers expressed confusion as to why the union would blink and negotiate further with Boeing when it had such an overwhelming mandate for a strike, which would cost the plane maker about $100 million in revenue per day as customers' planes sit idle on production lines.

"The union let us down," said Hook Saywers, a 21-year Boeing veteran, who said he was prepared to strike for as long as six months.

Boeing's "best and final" contract offer included about $34,000 in wage increases over the three years of the contract and a one-time lump sum payment.

The IAM recommended its members reject the offer, saying it reduces benefits, shifts more health-care costs onto workers and does not address job security or outsourcing issues. The union said 80 percent of its members rejected the offer.

"We will not sell you out," Tom Wroblewski, the IAM's Seattle-area president, said in a statement. "If Boeing does not produce the offer you expect, the strike is still on."