Free Republic

Your car. Your phone. The spare change in your pocket. They have one thing in common: A machinist helped to make all of them. “Most people don’t understand how products get made,” said Kurt Kimberling, an instructor in the Machining and CNC Technology program at North Idaho College. He has more than 30 years of industry experience. “Machinists have a hand in everything you use on a daily basis.” At NIC, Kimberling teaches basic to advanced machining concepts, such as precision measuring, operating a milling machine, and operating computer numerical control (CNC) machines. Students can earn an intermediate or advanced...

With the news last week that Machinists’ union members employed by Boeing in Puget Sound overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract that would have meant years worth of work on the new Boeing 777X, much of the attention was focused on what it would mean for union members’ future and where the work would go following their rejection. As the long-term contract they voted down had numerous concessions, it is understandable that it would have been a hard sell to get the members to accept it. Yet, that hard sell by local union leaders did not take place. In fact, the...

Posted on Sat, Oct. 06, 2012 Machinists vote to strike at Bombardier Learjet By Molly McMillin The Wichita Eagle Bombardier Learjet’s hourly workforce will walk off the job Monday after Machinists union members rejected the company’s contract offer and voted to strike. Union members voted Saturday 79 percent in favor of rejecting the company’s proposal of a five-year contract, which offered significant increases in health care costs and low general wage increases, and 79 percent in favor of a strike. Strikers will begin walking the picket line at 12:01 a.m. Monday, when the current three-year contract expires. The company said...

One of the biggest U.S. trade unions made an unusual dual endorsement in the 2008 White House race on Thursday, backing Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mike Huckabee for their parties' presidential nominations. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which has about 720,000 active and retired members, backed a candidate from each party for the first time after a recent survey found about one-third of union members voted Republican and two-thirds Democratic.

The Boeing Co. has reached a tentative contract agreement with its striking Machinists union workers, after a weekend bargaining session in Washington, D.C. Union members will vote on the three-year pact Thursday. Union leaders are recommending they accept it. "I think it's a good deal for our members or I wouldn't put my name to it," said union district president Mark Blondin. Under the new proposal, Boeing agreed to a further increase in pension benefits, and kept health care programs and costs the same as they were under the previous contract, Blondin said. Both had been key issues often mentioned...

Boeing's top airplane salesman apologized to customers yesterday for the "pain" caused by the Boeing Machinists strike, but said the company owed it to airlines to "hold out for a fair and reasonable settlement." Scott Carson also delivered an unusual mea culpa for missteps Boeing made earlier in the decade that led the company to neglect international customers and fall behind its European rival, Airbus, in airplane sales.

Boeing Co. Machinists voted Thursday to strike as union members overwhelmingly rejected a three-year contract proposal their leaders had deemed "insulting." Union members voted 86 percent in favor of a strike beginning at 12:01 a.m. local time Friday. Under union rules, the contract would have been automatically ratified -- and workers would have stayed on the job -- unless two-thirds of the union members voted to strike. The strike will affect about 18,400 Machinists who assemble Boeing's commercial airplanes and some key components in the Seattle area, Gresham, Ore., and Wichita, Kan. Company officials said earlier in the week that...