St. Louis-area building trades union leaders have agreed that workers will be available 24/7 with no overtime while building a production facility for the Boeing 777X as part of the effort to bring construction of that airliner to St. Louis County.
Governor Jay Nixon has announced the agreement that includes the Building and Construction Trades Council, the Carpenters District Council of St. Louis and the Eastern Missouri Laborers District Council. The deal would double the number of work hours in a week, triple the workforce available and reduce construction time by at least a year, according to Nixon’s Office.
Nixon and state lawmakers have said construction time is of the essence for Boeing, who has already taken orders for more than 250 of the planes and is behind schedule filling those orders after a deal couldn’t be reached to build them in Washington State. That deal fell through when unions there rejected concessions on pensions.
“Everybody is well aware of what occurred in Washington,” Nixon says.
Nixon says to his knowledge, the agreements have been made by union leaders but union members have not taken a vote on them.
“I am confident [these union leaders] speak for the thousands of construction workers that they represent in this regard.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports a more crucial deal would be with the International Association of Machinists Local 837, which represents Boeing assembly line workers in St. Louis. It is a sister to the machinists union in Seattle that last month rejected a contract tied to the 777X plant that prompted Boeing to look for another state in which to build the airliners.
