The article is missing why they rejected the 35% over 4 years. What do they actually want? Do they want 35% now? I'd also be interested to know how much money they are willing to lose if the strike costs Boeing 100M per day. Are the wages being asked significantly more than that? If they could raise 35% right now and it were to cost them 100M, then putting offers on the table that are likely to fail and losing 100M/day is just idiotic.
Boeing could pay them a 35% bump retroactive to the start of the year, guarantee them an inflation linked annual increase starting at 10%, and give them a beautiful pension.
They don't, because Boeing is run by money men now, and not engineers. Besides, it's not much a gamble when they can be confident in the worst scenarios, the workers get ordered back to work, or Boeing gets bailed out after losing all their money due to the strike. It's a win win win when your underlying goal is to not pay people what they're worth.
9% a year for the next four years doesn't even make up for the last four years of 'inflation'. I wouldn't take that deal either.
It is a bit ambiguous, isn't it. To clarify, I'm talking about Boeing lobbying the government to end strike action and force the union to accept terms whether or not they want to.