3 days mean a month at Boeing, shows history

Boeing Co’s machinists, on the third day of a strike over job security and compensation, may be walking the picket lines for more than a month, if history and industry analysts prove any guide.

The members of the Chicago-based planemaker’s largest union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, have stopped work over three of the last six contracts. Those strikes lasted 28 to 68 days.

“I would expect this one’s going to be long,” said Scott Hamilton, founder of Seattle-based aviation consultancy Leeham Co who’s been following Boeing for 20 years.

“There are some pretty serious issues that they’re pretty far apart on.”