Boeing said on Thursday that it planned to start hiring permanent replacements for workers who went on strike a month ago from three factories in and around St. Louis that make equipment for the military.
About 3,200 workers who build fighter jets and advanced aircraft and weapons systems walked off the job on Aug. 4 after the company and their union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837, failed to ratify a new contract.
In a statement, a Boeing executive said that the company was moving to hire new workers because the two sides had made little progress since the strike began.
“Unfortunately, the union continues to demand more of everything while also saying it has no control over what it will take to end the strike, driving the parties further apart,” Dan Gillian, a Boeing vice president and top St. Louis executive, said in a statement. “As a result, we’re taking the next step in our contingency plan and hiring permanent replacement workers for manufacturing roles to ensure we’re properly staffed to keep supporting our customers.”
News of Boeing’s plan to hire replacement workers was reported earlier by Bloomberg, which also reported that Boeing planned to hold a job fair later this month.
The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boeing has said that the St. Louis plants are open and that the workers who are not on strike continue to build, test and deliver some products. Boeing’s defense unit brought in about $23 billion in revenue last year, just over a third of the company’s total sales.
Union negotiators and Boeing had reached a deal on a new contract in July that would have raised wages by 40 percent, on average, over the life of the four-year agreement. It also included improvements to medical benefits, pensions, overtime and work-life balance. But the union’s members rejected that proposal and a second agreement, leading to the strike.
It is the first strike at the St. Louis plants since 1996, when workers walked off the job for 99 days. Last year, about 33,000 Boeing workers who mostly build commercial planes in the Seattle area went on strike for nearly two months before reaching an agreement and returning to work.
Niraj Chokshi is a Times reporter who writes about aviation, rail and other transportation industries.
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