“US Senate committee slams Boeing for cutting health care to striking St. Louis workers”, 24 October 2025

Democrat and Republican U.S. senators voiced their outrage during a committee hearing Wednesday that Boeing cut off health care to 3,000 striking workers at its St. Louis-area facilities.

And they accused the world's largest aerospace company of failing to offer its workers a fair contract.

…

Josh Arnold, a union member from St. Louis and coordinator for a Boeing program that supports the U.S. Navy's FA-18 Super Hornets fighter aircraft, told the committee that the workers have been on strike for 12 weeks demanding wage increases and better retirement benefits.

Arnold, who is also a union shop steward for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837, said the cost difference between the company's offer and union's ask is half the cost of one F-15 fighter jet.

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On Wednesday afternoon after the hearing, Boeing announced a new settlement offer, which decreases parts of the company's original offer that led to the strike that began on Aug. 4. The new offer followed two days of meetings with a federal mediator and union negotiators.

The union responded in a statement, "We've said it many times, and we'll say it again: we will not vote on an insulting offer."

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At the Senate committee hearing, Hawley said (…) “Because they won't commit to safety standards. They won't pay their workers well, but they pay their CEO and their C-suite more than ever before."

Democratic U.S. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts echoed Hawley's criticism, saying the company's "union busting is a threat to aviation safety."

…Markey said the company's refusal to agree to a fair contract with striking machinist workers "makes you wonder how Boeing can ever expect to restore its safety culture."