On Sunday, September 22, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific/5:00 p.m. Eastern, the Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee is holding an online meeting to mobilize the broadest support in the working class for the 33,000 striking Boeing machinists. Register for the event by clicking here.

The strike by 33,000 Boeing machinists across Washington, Oregon and California is in its sixth day, and the mood of workers on the picket line remains militant. It has been nearly a week since the rank and file soundly rejected a sellout agreement endorsed by the leadership of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), and the workers remain confident that they can win their demands.

The machinists are wary on the intervention of a federal mediator and have little confidence that the IAM bureaucracy will bring back anything more than a slightly altered version of the contract that they rejected by 95 percent last week. Workers who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site say they are prepared to stay out on strike and will vote down any contract the IAM brings back that does not meet their needs.

“We are going to continue to strike even if they come back with a few pennies more. We went on strike for a reason,” a member of the Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee told the WSWS. “I don’t think we’re going to cave. We’ve already caved for 16 years. The cost of living is outrageous out here.

“Boeing doesn’t care about safety. All they care about is getting those planes out the door. They should have seen this coming when we voted to strike by 99.9 percent in July. And now they act all surprised.”

Workers are determined, but they cannot fight this massive corporation, backed to the hilt by both big business parties, on their own.

A statement released earlier this week by the Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee declared, “The strike must be expanded to all sections of Boeing workers, including the engineers in SPEEA and non-union workers at the South Carolina plant. Informational pickets should be sent to win support from dockworkers, railroaders, Washington state employees, healthcare workers, education workers.”

The demands of Boeing workers—at least a 40 percent raise to combat inflation, maintaining their yearly bonus, improved healthcare and the restoration of pensions—echo among all workers who have faced decades of slashed wages and declining living standards.

Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke with airline workers in Seattle about their thoughts on the machinists’ strike. An American Airlines pilot said, “I support the strike 100 percent. The management at Boeing has been out of control for decades, and it’s time for them to pay back the givebacks that were given to the company since the merger with McDonnell Douglas and taking their pensions.”

Striking Boeing workers on the picket line in Renton, Washington

He continued, “The whole country is sick of it. You can barely get by. New hires are making $18 an hour. That’s McDonald’s wages to work on nearly supersonic airplanes. It’s not right. That’s the corporate greed in this country. And then Boeing threatens to take more production out of Washington and build the next airplane in another state.”

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