Boeing (BA) is sweetening the pot in an attempt to end a costly strike by its unionized machinists. The company announced Monday that it is revising its original offer — the 25% wage increase that members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted down last week — to a proposed 30% bump.
“After listening to our employees and their concerns, Boeing today presented our best and final offer,” the company said in a statement provided to Quartz.
The phrase “best and final offer” is an important bit of legalese because it signifies that the party deploying it has no plans to bargain further. If bargaining grinds to a halt, negotiations will reach what is called an “impasse,” a more difficult stage where the company might seek to impose its best offer unilaterally and the union might ask a judge to force the company back to the table.
The strike is costing Boeing a lot of money already through lost production, and it could also result in the company losing its investment-grade credit rating, if the work stoppage does too much to deplete the plane maker’s shrinking cash position. The IAM was seeking a 40% wage increase, so the number that Boeing has put on the table may not satisfy workers who were already willing to walk off the job. The union is currently reviewing the offer.
“This news validates every step that hardworking Boeing employees have taken on the picket line thus far,” it said in a statement provided to Quartz. “Employees knew Boeing executives could do better, and this shows the workers were right all along.”
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