Aircraft

Striking machinists at Boeing plan to restart talks that stalled on 13 October this week with a federal mediator in Washington, DC.

The 27,000 Boeing employees represented by the International Association of Machinists (IAM) have been on strike for seven weeks.

Boeing and IAM representatives plan to resume bargaining on 23 October.

Not surprisingly job security has been a key issue in the negotiations. IAM has argued for the right to compete for work Boeing plans to outsource and wants the company to agree not to use subcontractors for any work normally performed by machinists at the company's Everett, Washington facility.

With respect to the latest round of talks IAM says: "We hope this marks a major step forward to resolve this strike. Yet the union also stresses the importance of continuing to "stay strong on the picket lines. That's how we're going to secure a contract that will settle this strike".

The strike by IAM is costing Boeing roughly $100 million and day, freezing aircraft production and triggering delays in the delivery of aircraft.

See FlightBlogger's coverage of the Boeing strike