This story originally appeared in Labor Notes on Sep. 23, 2024. It is shared here with permission.

Boeing has increased its offer to striking Machinists, hoping to end a work stoppage that entered its eleventh day today. According to the Seattle Times, the new proposal would raise wages 30 percent over four years, as opposed to 25 percent in the offer that workers rejected by 94.6 percent.

Mediated talks with Boeing broke off September 18, the union said, with nothing more scheduled. Then on Monday morning, the company announced a new offer in the press. Twelve hours later, the union responded that Boeing “has missed the mark with this proposal.”

In a scathing statement, the negotiating team noted that the company misled the press “by wrongfully stating that the union membership is required to vote on the their latest offer… They are trying to drive a wedge between members with this divisive strategy.”

According to news reports, the offer would restore the annual bonus and slightly increase the 401(k) match, but it does not restore the defined-benefit pension the company froze in 2016, dumping everyone into a 401(k). The signing bonus would be hiked from $3,000 per worker to $6,000.

Meanwhile, picket lines have settled into a routine at the massive assembly plants in Renton and Everett, Washington, the smaller Auburn fabrication plant and the Gresham, Oregon facility. The 32,000 striking Machinists are members of IAM Districts 751 in Washington and W24 in Oregon. The strike is costing the company $100 million a day, Bloomberg estimated.

Workers are taking side gigs and living on savings. Strikers will receive $250 a week from the union starting the third week on the strike, but will lose health coverage September 30 if they don’t pay for a COBRA extension.

Boeing’s 16,000 engineering staff, members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), are contractually required to continue work during the strike, but they do not have to do Machinists’ work unless directly ordered to, their union has advised. Members said there is little sign of that happening.

Some SPEEA members have been joining Machinists on the picket lines before and after work, and are posting workplace signs in support of the strike. When the company suggested it could furlough some engineers to save cash, SPEEA responded with a firm no, citing their contract.

CROCODILE TEARS

Boeing management had pleaded with union members to consider the company’s frail position and huge backlog of plane orders. But workers dismissed the company’s scaremongering, voting 96 percent to strike, and walked out at midnight September 12.

While Boeing wailed that the strike may cause mortal wounds to the company, the Machinists union has for decades been fighting against the company’s self-wounding practices: rampant outsourcing, undermining of quality inspections, moving work to non-union shops, and hollowing out what used to be a coveted family-sustaining job.

Company policies have resulted in the loss of experienced workers, production delays, mismatched and shoddy parts, and the disastrous quality lapses that led to an Alaska Airlines door plug blowout in January.

QUALITY INSPECTIONS CUT

It was the union that was originally responsible for pushing the separation of quality inspection from production pressures, said Steve Cabana, a quality assurance inspector for 13 years. “Having quality separate in the supervisory chain is the only way quality can have any teeth,” he said. “I can look at a process and stop it.”

This is not true at vendors the company buys parts from, Cabana said, where they have “the same management system for manufacturing and quality.”

“That’s how the company figured it could save money by outsourcing, because other people didn’t have the same rigorous standards,” Cabana said.

“It’s a fragile network of suppliers who honestly aren’t compensated all that well for the work that they do,” said Mylo Lang, an apprentice machinist at Auburn with six years at the company. “They’ve really been squeezing them, in fact, over the years.”

In Boeing’s own plants, the company has tried to slash inspections, too.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires in-person inspections by qualified workers, but in 2017 Boeing tried to speed up production by having mechanics sign off on their own work.

At the company’s assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, which currently has no union, the lack of worker power and input meant the company tested out cuts to quality inspections there first, around 2017, then expanded into the Puget Sound plants, where union members rallied to stop the cuts, flooding meetings and making the question a shop floor issue.

‘IT’S NOT OK TO CUT QA’

“We still see yellow ‘It’s Not OK to Cut QA’ (Quality Assurance) stickers around the plant,” said one six-year Everett worker who recalled that in 2018 the company tried to cut 900 inspectors, out of 3,000, “with the intention of pushing that work onto the production mechanic using automated technology sensors.” At Everett they build 767, 777, and 787s.

Tests of function, inspections of shimming (slender shims make the plane’s airframe durable over a lifetime of stress), and tests of riveting were all on the chopping block. The union calculated that Boeing removed 3,200 inspections on each 737 Max, from a total of 11,000.

But the company didn’t listen, so the union went to the FAA with official complaints. In 2021, the FAA found that Boeing was violating federal regulations and defective systems and parts were getting through as a result.

The union wants more power to stop corner-cutting. District 751 President Jon Holden told Fortune in June: “We’re proposing that we have the right to negotiate provisions that go into the safety and quality of the planes.”

STOCK PRICE OVER EVERYTHING

Boeing’s troubles, workers say, started when the company merged in 1997 with McDonnell Douglas, a failing military contractor which also made some civilian aircraft.

“McDonnell Douglas went south, latched onto Boeing, and somehow got on the board,” said Edwin Haala, who worked at Boeing for 25 years. McDonnell Douglas management team—disciples of General Electric’s “Neutron Jack” Welch—ended up taking over.

As at GE, the price of corporate shares became the only test of success—and corporate leaders’ attention to stock price was sharpened by their own compensation in stock options.

Boeing slashed costs, outsourced work, and refused to invest the large chunks of money required to develop new aircraft. This led to the cheaper (and, it turned out, disastrous) reworking of the company’s workhorse 737 into the 737 MAX.

Awkward design workarounds on the already FAA-approved plane led to the 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

“That’s what happens when you have people making decisions whose absolute bottom line and final and complete vision is profit,” said Lang.

While Boeing complains that it’s short of cash, and now is paying a premium to borrow money (its rating is just above junk), Voss pointed out that the company spent $38 billion on stock buybacks from 2014 to 2018, juicing the stock price and advantaging corporate leaders who receive compensation in stock.

Buybacks, which were largely regarded as stock manipulation until 1982, reward shareholders in a way that avoids taxes on their gains. “It’s not worker appreciation,” said Voss. “It’s not updating facilities. It’s just toeing the line for Wall Street.”

HIGH TURNOVER

The unions demands on pay, pensions, health care, and mandatory overtime would reduce turnover, workers say.

Hearings on the door-plug episode revealed dizzying turnover numbers. Machinists Business Agent Lloyd Catlin testified at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing August 6 that the company told him that in the Renton facility, “60 percent of the Boeing workforce, including management, had less than two years at the Boeing Company.”

Many don’t make it past the first year. “You talk to any Boeing worker about their first year, and everyone knows that it is the worst thing in the world,” said Lang.

The rejected contract would have at least allowed first-year workers to use their paltry vacation hours as they accumulate them, rather than waiting to the end of their first year. But aside from allowing one more floating holiday day, the tentative agreement didn’t address the stingy vacation policies. Lang, with six years in, gets two weeks.

“Boeing wants to talk about, like, keeping workers on and getting them trained, right? Like, let people be sick. Let people have a f*cking life,” he said.

OVERTIME WOES

Paltry leave is on top of massive mandatory overtime. Previous bargaining already limited mandatory overtime to 112 hours every three months. But that still left people exhausted and broken, said Voss.

Speaking before the strike, Voss said that in his shop six people had resigned in the previous week. He listed their reasons: “‘I don’t like it,’ ‘It’s not what I thought it was,’ ‘It’s not worth it,’ ‘I have a better job.’”

He said this level of turnover is not uncommon for his shop, which is particularly stressful: “We’re installing systems, electrical and plumbing and fuel and hydraulics, and the way it is laid out is very complex and confusing if you haven’t been there for a while. So people are kind of just thrown into this mess.”

When Lang started at Boeing he worked on the 737 MAX in Renton and had a lot of 70-hour weeks mandated. “Like, you either show up to this place for 70 hours in a week or you lose your job. And that is not the way that we should operate in a free society.

“I would rather that we don’t have mandatory overtime in the contract. Like, that doesn’t seem like something that we ought to be okay with having,” said Lang.

Voss said the low pay and forced overtime are decisive in driving workers away, “because of the absolute pressure that is put on people for such little return. We’re barely valued as human beings; we’re effectively just a number. People want a sense of respect, and part of that sense of respect comes with a living wage.”

The rejected tentative agreement would have banned two mandated weekends in a row. But Lang, in Auburn, said he worried that the company would just end up moving the mandated overtime into 10-hour days rather than weekend work.

And many workers said they were working excessive overtime that wasn’t mandatory—but it might as well have been, because the low base wages made premium hours impossible to pass up. “I will forever regret the amount of overtime I’ve had to do to provide for my family,” said Jeff Simons, a lead rework mechanic on his fifth strike. “That’s everybody in America. But this company needs to fix our problems.”

This article was updated to reflect the union’s response to the company’s offer.

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Skirted furniture might sit with the “grandmacore” aesthetic, but in recent years it has moved out of the country cottage into more contemporary settings.

Nicholas Jeanes, co-founder of design studio And Objects, points to its Otterbourne Slipper Chair, which is dressed in a geometric Christopher Farr Cloth Fresco fabric. “Fabric choice and colour instantly changes the look and feel of a traditional upholstered chair,” he says of the eye-catching design. Designer Rachel Donath agrees, and recently added fringing to her velvet Allard Ottoman – for a modern twist.

Rachel Donath velvet Allard Ottoman in Jewel Merlot, £610

And Objects Otterbourne Slipper chair in Christopher Farr Cloth fabric, £5,500

But why have skirting at all? “Not only does it eliminate the dead space underneath your furniture,” says Jeanes, “an upholstered skirt provides flow and softens the transition from the main body of the furniture to the floor.” Longer and looser fabric creates even more fluidity – see the lengthy skirt on Trove by Studio Duggan’s Skirted Seven chair that flares out in a voluminous fashion, or Alice Palmer & Co’s pendant wrapped in linen that hangs down in diaphanous folds. Nicola Harding includes a floor-grazing ruffle around the base of her Curtain Call sofa as a decorative detail that finishes the piece beautifully.

But skirts don’t have to be flouncy. Pierre Augustin Rose’s white Froufrou ottoman features neat, flat pleats lending simple elegance, while Ceraudo completes its footstools with a cute frilly flourish available in checks, dots, stripes and a diamond pattern. Co-founder Victoria Ceraudo has always loved skirting. “It breaks up the overall form of the furniture,” she concludes, “and creates a warm and inviting interior to cosy down in.”

The amount of money raised on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) through secondary fundraising has decreased by 33% from last year.

Secondary fundraising describes the sale of post-IPO shares on the secondary market between investors.

Research from national accountancy group UHY Hacker Young showed that only £1.18bn was brought in through secondary fundraising over the past year to August 2023, compared to £1.8bn the previous year.

UHY Hacker Young said: “The fall in the amount of money raised could suggest that investors in AIM companies have been less willing to support AIM companies pursue growth plans.”

There has been a continued decline from a high of £6bn in fundraising in 2021.

UHY Hacker Young also said that investors have been less supportive of UK shares over the past few years.

Additionally, the perceived risks of UK shares having risen since the Liz Truss Budget in September 2022.

Rumours are also circulating that chancellor Rachel Reeves may remove the inheritance tax break on AIM shares ahead of the Budget on 30 October.

Currently, shares in many AIM companies are not subject to IHT, making them more valuable to private investors.

In the past 12 months, only one company managed to raise more than £100m through secondary fundraisings on the AIM market.

UHY Hacker Young partner Colin Wright said: “One of the great successes of the AIM market has been the ability of companies to raise money after their IPO to keep powering their growth.

“That element of AIM hasn’t been working recently. The amount of money is down sharply.

“You can’t blame that entirely on possible tax changes for AIM shares, but the speculation isn’t helping.

“The AIM market is a vital part of the UK’s efforts to create growth companies so reducing the tax breaks attached to it would be counterproductive.

“I’m pretty sure the stock exchange would like the government to clear the air and confirm they have no intention of changing the tax status of AIM shares.”

Wright added that investor focus has shifted away from AIM towards the US market, mainly due to AI-related tech companies performing well.

A consequence of this is that smaller UK companies are struggling to attract the attention of investors and the capital needed for growth and expansion.

This, he said, has resulted in the valuations of UK listed companies being lower than counterparts on other stock markets and increases the possibility of takeovers of UK companies.

Wright concluded: “The government does need to find ways to encourage more investments in companies on UK stock markets so that they can remain competitive with other countries.”

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Map of Tropical Storm Helene’s path

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It seems that composer George Benjamin and his regular librettist, Martin Crimp, have an eye for a story. Each of the operas on which they have collaborated has a dramatic narrative that is at once original and layered with meaning.

The latest fruit of their work is Picture a Day Like This, lasting just over one hour and given its premiere at the Aix-en-Provence festival last year. This live recording was made during that first run of performances, though the technical quality is so good that nobody would know.

A woman has lost her child just as it was old enough “to speak whole sentences”. On being told that her child can be brought back to life if she finds a happy person and cuts a button from their sleeve, she goes on a quest, engaging in a series of unsuccessful encounters. When she does finally meet a woman who seems to be a good match, the outcome is not what she expected.

There is a once-upon-a-time quality to the work that is reflected in the music’s carefully judged refusal to offer easy, tangible answers. This is the most intimate of Benjamin’s stage works and the instrumental ensemble is a small one, though one might not realise that from the range of sounds he is able to create. As always, Benjamin is very specific about every instrumental timbre.

The performance, conducted by the composer, is impeccable in its precision. Marianne Crebassa sings the Woman and the roles of the people she meets are shared between Anna Prohaska, Beate Mordal, Cameron Shahbazi and John Brancy, all excellent.

★★★★☆

‘Benjamin: Picture a Day Like This’ is released by Nimbus Records

YOU could be quids in if you’re able to spot these little-known designs with rare errors in your spare change.

There’s a chance the small coins in your change might be worth a big fortune.

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Rare coins are known to pick up large sums of money.

If you discover a sought-after coin in your change, you can make money on it by selling them at auction, either online or in person, or through a dealer.

There are some coins which are known to fetch large sums of cash, such as the Kew Gardens 50p and the commemorative 50p coins minted to mark the London 2012 games.

But there are also lesser-known designs that are worth keeping an eye out for – as well as error coins.

A coin with a minting error could be worth a small fortune because very few actually make it into circulation.

The price of a coin varies based on things like demand at the time and how common it is.

It’s important to remember that you aren’t guaranteed to fetch huge amounts if you do choose to sell your change.

Anyone can list a coin on eBay and charge whatever amount they wish, but it’s only ever worth what someone is willing to pay.

By checking the recently sold items you will get a more accurate indication of what people are willing to pay for a specific coin.

If you managed to sell all of the coins mentioned below for their top value, you could make up to £3,312.

Undated 20p – £100

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The undated 20p is known as the “holy grail of change collecting”, ChangeChecker previously told The Sun.

Collectors have been known to search far and wide for the valuable coin ever since it entered circulation in 2008.

Back then, The Royal Mint decided to change the positioning of the date on every 20p piece, moving it from the back to the front.

But in an accidental error, a batch of between 50,000 and 250,000 coins was released without any date at all.

Kimberley Day from RWB auctions said: “These British coins were the first in more than three hundred years to enter circulation with no date.

“Real examples should have no date on either side but otherwise look similar to standard 20ps. These coins sell online for up to £100.”

We checked eBay and found that one of these error coins sold for £75 on September 25.

While another sold for £69.99 on September 20, and a third for £68 on September 15.

Olympic Aquatics 50p – £3,000

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This rare coin features an image of a swimmer slicing through the water on its reverse.

But the coin we are familiar with today wasn’t actually the original design, Kimberley said.

“Rare early examples show lines across the swimmer’s face, whereas the more common type shows no lines,” she added.

“If you have collector’s edition of this coin with the 50p sealed in a purple and teal card it is worth checking if you have the rare variant.

“Most examples are found in this type of packaging but loose examples have been found in people’s change.

“Genuine examples of this error have sold for £3,000 or more.”

The coin was minted in 2011, along with 28 other designs that each featured a sport played at the 2021 Olympics.

The games were hosted in London that year, so the coin collection came out to celebrate the piece of British sporting history.

It isn’t known how many of the original design Olympic Aquatics 50ps are out there.

We spotted one of these coins which sold for a whopping £3,766 on eBay on August 4.

£2 Inverted Britannia effigy – £150

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A small number of 2015 Britannia £2 coins were minted with the Queen’s head upside down.

They accidentally entered circulation and they could now be worth a small fortune.

The Queen’s head is offset by about 150 degrees compared to the Britannia design on the other side.

It’s thought that the error was caused by a loose die rotating during the striking process.

The coin has a mintage figure of just 650,000, making it one of the scarcest in circulation.

It’s estimated that as few as one in 200 – or approximately 3,250 – of them feature the inverted effigy”, ChangeChecker previously told The Sun.

When The Sun checked eBay, we found one that sold for £150 on August 12.

Navy £2 with ‘flag’ error – £17

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There are two different design variations of the 2015 Navy £2 coin that were released into circulation.

The original Navy £2 design show the coin without any markings on the top right of the mast, while the other appears to have a flag flying.

Collectors speculated that two different designs were struck, but it was later confirmed as a striking error caused by a cracked die.

It is unknown how many of these error coins are in circulation, but Kate says it is worth checking the ones in your collection.

The worth of these coins varies across eBay, with one going for a fiver on August 18 and another selling for £17 on July 22.

Sir Isaac Newton 50p – £45

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The Sir Isaac Newton 50p was first issued in 2017 to mark the 375th anniversary of the famous scientist’s birth.

But eagle-eyed collectors soon noticed something a little different on some of their 50ps.

Several collectors reported finding an error on the obverse where several extra lines appeared across the Queen’s portrait.

Again, it’s thought to be an error caused during the striking process during a ‘die clash’.

It’s not known how many of these error coins are in circulation.

One of these coins sold for £45 on September 8, while another went for £30 on August 30.

How do I check if my coin is rare?

Rare coins and valuable notes can be worth tens of thousands of times their face value.

But sometimes it’s just tiny differences which make them so lucrative.

The most valuable coins tend to be ones with low mintage numbers or an error.

Those qualities typically make them valuable to collectors.

Your next step would be to check if your coin is still available to purchase in superior Brilliant Uncirculated quality from an official Royal Mint distributor, according to Change Checker.

Certified Brilliant Uncirculated coins have been specially struck to a superior unblemished quality which set them apart from the coins you may find in pockets.

Selling a coin at auction or through a dealer

There are many different factors to consider when trying to value a coin, including its condition and mintage, so it’s important to do your homework first.

If you’ve got a coin that you would like to sell at auction, you can contact The Royal Mint’s Collectors Service.

It has a team of experts who can help you to authenticate and value your coin.

You’ll need to enquire via email, and a member of the valuation team will contact get back to you.

Take a picture of your coin and attach this to the email – you can find the details on The Royal Mint’s website.

Be aware that you will be charged for this service though – the cost will vary depending on the size of your collection.

If you are looking to buy a coin online through a marketplace such as eBay, it’s important to know exactly what you are purchasing.

This is because anyone can list a coin on eBay and charge whatever amount they wish.

You should also be wary of fakes online – and keep in mind that on eBay a buyer could pull out, which means the coin won’t have sold for the price it says it has.

Meanwhile, we have put together a guide on the rarest and most valuable coins.

We also tell you what you should do if you find a lucky penny in your pocket.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories