What this Boeing strike is really all about

At the heart of the Boeing strike that began Friday is a story about what happens when penny-pinching executives lose the plot and it falls to workers to get everyone back on track.

At the heart of the Boeing strike that began Friday is a story about what happens when penny-pinching executives lose the plot and it falls to workers to get everyone back on track. Last year, Boeing didn’t make a profit. In fact, the plane maker has lost money every year since 2018, when a series of deadly crashes and near-disasters left its reputation and finances in the gutter. If Boeing were any other business — and not a too-big-fail half of a global duopoly — it almost certainly would have declared bankruptcy. Still, in 2023, the CEO — an accountant by training — got a 45% pay bump, to nearly $33 million. Meanwhile, wages for Boeing’s 33,000 unionized employees have been stagnant. They are, quite simply, furious. Years of pent-up resentment over Boeing’s mismanagement, combined with pandemic-era inflation and a resurgent labor movement, made this strike inevitable.