Boeing on Monday increased its wage proposal for thousands of striking workers, offering a 30 percent prevailing wage increase over four years in what the company called its “best and final” offer as the strike drags on.
The company is also offering to reinstate performance bonuses, increase severance pay and double recognition bonuses to $6,000 if employees accept by Friday.
Seattle-area workers who make Boeing Co's top-selling 737 MAX jets and other planes assembled at a Washington state factory rejected a full contract for the first time in 16 years and went on strike on Sept. 13.
Boeing has frozen hiring and begun laying off thousands of American workers to cut costs. A prolonged strike could cost the company billions of dollars, worsen its already strained finances and threaten to cut its credit rating.
The strike, Boeing's first since 2008, is the latest in a tumultuous year for the company that began in January when a door panel on one of its new 737 Max jets detached in mid-air.
Plant workers rejected an earlier tentative agreement between Boeing and the union that included a 25 percent wage increase over four years and a promise that any new planes launched during the four-year agreement would be built in the Seattle area.
A union spokesman for the International Union of Machinists and Aerospace Workers was not immediately available for comment.
Boeing shares rose more than 2% on Monday.
