How Julie Su negotiated the end of the Boeing strike
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Photo illustration: Axios Visuals. Photos: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
While the world braced for the election earlier this week, acting labor secretary Julie Su was busy solving another crisis — helping to end the Boeing strike.
The big picture: It was at least the fifth time Su's stepped in to wrestle thorny union talks to a deal in the less than two years she's been in her role.
Zoom out: Even for a Democratic labor secretary, the number of negotiations Su has been involved with has been outsized, for a couple of reasons:
- The extraordinary amount of union activity in the post-pandemic era.
- The administration's aggressively pro-labor posture.
Catch up fast: The acting labor secretary was instrumental in averting a strike and securing a deal for West Coast port workers last year.
- At the East Coast ports, she and President Biden successfully pushed shipping companies to raise their offer to striking dockworkers and get them back to work.
- This fall she also played a pivotal role with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in negotiations between the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and American Airlines.
Zoom in: Su told Axios that a challenge in hammering out the Boeing deal was that the aerospace manufacturer hadn't bargained with its union in over a decade.
- She went back and forth with each side last month — traveling to Seattle three times and hosting CEO Kelly Ortberg at her office in D.C. There was a marathon day at the end of October when everyone gathered at Department of Labor offices in Seattle.
What she's saying: "There was a real history here where the prior leadership of the company had really undervalued and undermined the relationship between management and the machinists. And so the workers really felt that."
- "This is something I've seen over and over again and why I say it's a new era of worker power in this country," Su said in an interview on Election Day.
What to watch: East Coast dockworkers still have a contract to finalize before a January deadline — and Su may not be around much longer to help.
- The coming Trump administration with ambiguous labor goals might push the sides to reach a deal sooner.
