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Boeing freezes hiring and mulls temporary layoffs, citing machinists’ strike
Boeing is freezing hiring across the company, citing a strike launched on Friday by 33,000 machinists at the airplane manufacturer that it said “jeopardizes” its business.
Boeing is also pausing all pay raises and promotions, halting non-essential business travel, and taking other steps to cut costs, the aviation giant said Monday as the ongoing strike begins taking a financial toll. Other belt-tightening measures include eliminating corporate first- and business-class travel, as well as pausing spending on outside consultants, charitable contributions, and advertising and marketing.
The measures are aimed at preserving cash and safeguarding the company’s future, Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said in a memo shared with employees. Boeing underlined that it will not reduce funding in areas that support safety, quality and direct customer support work.
“This strike jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way, and we must take necessary actions to preserve cash and safeguard our shared future,” West wrote, noting the company’s negotiations with the two unions representing workers. “Importantly, we will protect all funding for safety, quality and direct customer support work.”
West also said Boeing is considering temporarily furloughing “many” employees, managers and executives in the coming weeks, without specifying a number of potential layoffs. The company is expected to share more details on its plan in the coming days.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers has been on strike since last week after voting to reject Boeing’s latest contract offer. The proposed deal would boost worker wages by 25% over four years and lift machinists’ salaries at the company from $75,608 per year on average, not counting overtime, to $106,350 by the end of the contract, according to Boeing.
The striking assembly workers build the 737 Max, Boeing’s best-selling jetliner, along with the 777 commercial jet and 767 cargo plane at factories in Renton and Everett, Washington. The company is expected to halt the manufacturing the aircraft if the strike continues. Boeing 787 Dreamliners are built by nonunion workers in South Carolina.
Boeing already faced financial setbacks and reputational damage before the strike. It has lost more than $25 billion since the beginning of 2019 after facing a range of manufacturing issues and coming under investigation by federal regulators this year.
—With reporting from the Associated Press
The House Ethics Committee, which has been conducting an investigation into sexual misconduct and obstruction allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, scheduled a vote for Friday on whether to release its report, according to three sources with knowledge of the committee’s work.
Hours after President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to nominate Gaetz to be attorney general, Gaetz resigned his congressional seat, effective immediately.
“I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress, to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump Administration,” Gaetz said in his resignation letter obtained by CBS News
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that there was about an eight-week period during which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could fill his seat by setting the date for a special election.
Now that Gaetz has resigned, it is unclear whether the panel will vote on releasing the report, since Gaetz is no longer in Congress.
There is precedent in Congress on the Senate side for an ethics committee report to become public after a member resigns from Congress, however. In 2011, this happened when Sen. John Ensign of Nevada resigned amid allegations that he tried to hide an extramarital affair.
But it’s not clear that that would apply to the House, leaving open the possibility that the report on Gaetz would not be released.
In June, the House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it was investigating a range of allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery.
Multiple sources at the time told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the committee’s investigation a “frivolous” smear campaign.
Some of the allegations of sexual misconduct under review by the committee were also the subject of a previous Department of Justice probe into Gaetz. Federal investigators sought to determine if Gaetz violated sex trafficking and obstruction of justice laws, but no charges were filed.
The House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation into Gaetz in 2023, following the Justice Department’s decision not to pursue charges against him.
Gaetz has long blamed then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also a Republican, for the probe. And Gaetz later led the movement to sack McCarthy as speaker.
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