Boeing Contract Won’t End Exploitation here ♦ Boeing’s Blood-Soaked Profits here ♦
Boeing Contract Won’t End Exploitation or Imperialist War Production
SEATTLE (US), August 14— “The management culture in the plant sucks,” said a member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) as he entered the Renton Boeing plant.
“Like everywhere else around the world,” he added, as he pulled off his headphones and pointed to the headline about the rebellion in Bangladesh in Red Flag. “I was just hearing about that!” he said. He promised to share the paper with his co-workers.
As the Boeing Corporation continues to churn out weapons, including more bombs to drop on Gaza, Boeing workers are set to vote on a new contract on September 12.
Another Boeing worker declared as he rushed into work, “We will still be exploited after this new contract.” This was the second time he got our paper, and he wanted to be sure we continued to come to the gate.
Contracts Chain Us to the Capitalists
Boeing IAM District President Jon Holden keeps saying the contract vote is not only about union members: “We aren’t just fighting for ourselves; we are fighting for everyone,” he claimed. “From our family members to the flying public, we want everyone to be proud of this company once again.” Being proud of one’s work is one thing, but nobody should be proud of a profit-hungry corporation with blood on its hands.
Recently Holden sat on a “New Day for Labor” panel with United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain and Fiat company representatives. They discussed this year’s major contracts. But that’s not the discussion workers need. A contract doesn’t destroy the chains of exploitation; it only defines the shape of those chains.
“The material basis of capitalist production is exploitation and profits,” commented a Red Flag reader and distributor.
“Boeing makes billions of dollars off the skills, hard work, and dedication of our members,” admitted IAM International President Brian Bryant. “Our members deserve their fair share. And the time has finally come when they will get their fair share.”
But workers’ labor creates ALL wealth. It pays for the plants and machinery, the fancy corporate offices, executives’ huge bonuses and deluxe retirement packages. Why should the new CEO get $22 million/year and the retired CEO even more? Our “fair share” is EVERYTHING we produce. And we produce EVERYTHING. Workers built these plants, and communist revolution will enable us to take them back.
In communism, production will focus on the collective needs of the international working class. The working masses will decide where, what, and how we produce. There will be no capitalists to profit. The weapons we produce will be to defend our communist future.
Once we have won communism worldwide, there will be no nations to go to war. No bombs killing tens of thousands of children and adults, as in Gaza today.
Redesign Society to Meet the Masses’ Needs
Boeing planes are falling apart in the sky.
On August 7, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy questioned the rosy safety picture presented by Boeing executives. “The entire system failed,” she countered. “You need to redesign to prevent that failure.’’
Homendy is right that Boeing’s production design failed. But the system that failed is capitalism. Government agencies won’t redesign that! It’s communists who fight for a production system that meets the needs of the global masses.
“The workload at a Boeing factory is too great to avoid mistakes being made,” a blue-collar Boeing worker told NTSB investigators. “People are forced to work too fast.”
Capitalist production is designed to maximize profits. Exploitation, competition, and war are baked into the system for this exact purpose. The trade-union focus on contracts only assures exploitation.
Join the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) to embrace revolutionary communism instead of reformist trade-unionism! We have already distributed over 300 copies of Red Flag newspaper at the Renton plant. Many insightful discussions among comrades and Boeing workers outside and inside the plant show the potential for revolutionary organizing.
You can help right now by setting up a network of Red Flag readers inside the plant or among family and friends. From these networks will come ICWP collectives linked up from Seattle to Bangladesh and beyond. They will lead to the essential recruitment and base building among international industrial workers. Then the days of capitalist tyranny, exploitation and global war will be numbered.
Seattle, USA, Summer 2011
Boeing’s Blood-soaked Profits
In 2023, a reported 37% of Boeing’s revenue came from the US government, including foreign arms sales. Even though most workers who will participate in the strike vote build commercial aircraft, they too are concerned about war production.
Boeing is one of the world’s largest war profiteers. Its products have enabled mass devastation in Yemen, Palestine, Kashmir, the Philippines, West Papua, Syria, and at the US-Mexico border.
Its Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) weapon system is the ground-based leg of the US nuclear arsenal.
The US is currently shipping even more of its F-15 and F-16 fighter planes to Israel and Ukraine.
Boeing was the top US manufacturer of missiles and munitions delivered to Israel from 2021-2023. Boeing’s 250-pound GBU-39 bombs continue to rain down death on Gaza.
Boeing’s Renton (WA) plant produces P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance planes, developed for the US Navy. They’re currently used also by the militaries of India, Australia, the UK, Norway, New Zealand, and others for anti-submarine warfare and surveillance.
The Boeing Corporation exists to maximize profits for its shareholders. That always means attacks on Boeing workers. And as all-out war production for imperialist war ramps up, those attacks will continue to sharpen.
During the Russian Revolution, industrial workers in the Putilov factories took over the plants. They drove to the front lines of the revolution with the weapons they made and fought next to their comrades.
Both the workers who make the commercial airplanes and those who make military weapons can be recruited to fight for communism. Along with soldiers and sailors, these workers will be key to fighting and winning a revolution. US imperialism is fighting for its survival, but the working class will put capitalism in its grave.