DOES SHE CHEW GUM

Jessica Campbell helps bring NHL out of the Stone Age even as trolls run rampant: 'A certified bad***. This is not a publicity stunt'

With the hire by the Seattle Kraken, the NHL becomes the last of the four major North American professional leagues to feature a full-time female coach.

Kyle Cantlon
·Writer
Thu, October 10, 2024

Seattle Kraken coach Jessica Campbell busted through the NHL's glass ceiling on Tuesday night. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

It wasn't your ordinary NHL opening night. This one was big.

Seattle may have lost its home opener to the St. Louis Blues as the league kicked off a new campaign on Tuesday, but a massive moment for hockey culture was created in the process with Jessica Campbell making her debut behind the Kraken bench — becoming the first full-time female coach to work in the NHL.

The league is the last out of the four major North American professional sports league to feature a full-time female coach, but the saying "better late than never" has never rang more true.

Following the historic night for the Kraken's assistant coach, Campbell played the "business as usual" card as professional coaches do, but the significance of the moment was far from lost from her as she chatted with media following the game.

“For me, it's just a normal day in terms of my work, in terms of my routine, in terms of all of those pieces,” Campbell said.

“But I think the moment leading up to the game and stepping on the bench … I'm really going to try to honour what it is, because I know, and I definitely understand that the magnitude and the importance of this moment is really important for our game,” she added, via NHL.com.

Despite the expected outpouring of negativity from a small minority of trolls and keyboard warriors, Campbell's history-making night is being celebrated by the vast majority of fans. They took to social media to celebrate Campbell's massive accomplishment in a sport that's proven extremely difficult for women coaches and executives to get their foot in the door — let alone kick through it.

Fans were in their feelings after Campbell's debut behind the bench, but the way Seattle's players talked about her after the game is maybe the most telling sign of the impact Campbell will make on the game and on the careers of those who actually suit up to go to battle every night in the best hockey league on Earth.

"It’s something that we’ve all been proud to be a part of," Seattle defenseman Vince Dunn told a gaggle of media following Tuesday's game. "It certainly makes a statement around the world for all women, so it’s a special moment for her tonight. It sucks we couldn’t get the win for her."

Goaltender Joey Daccord, meanwhile, has spent plenty of time under the guidance Campbell and has witnessed first hand the skills and intangibles she possesses that make her such a strong coach and mentor.

“I’ve seen her evolve as a coach,” Daccord said. “My first year with her (with AHL affiliate Coachella Valley) was also her first year, and I think at the beginning, she felt it out a little bit and was a little bit more patient ... trying to figure out the lay of the land and how everything worked.

"Now she's much more assertive, and she's really smart and I think the biggest thing is that she and Dan are just on such the same page that it really allows them to be cohesive in their plan and their strategy and execute the plans that they have for our team."

It's certainly a major move out of the stone age for the NHL and the women's coaching ranks, but it's been a long time coming for a league that often lags behind its North American sports counterparts like the NFL, NBA and MLB, in diverse hiring practices.

Becky Hammon was the first woman to serve as an acting head coach in the NBA in 2020 after being hired as a full-time assistant by the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. There are currently six active female assistant coaches in the NBA.

At the start of the 2024 NFL season, full-time coaching positions were held by 15 women across the league. Major League Baseball teams, meanwhile, employ 43 full-time women coaches across the major and minor leagues after Alyssa Nakken became the first woman to coach on the field in an MLB game for the San Francisco Giants early in the 2022 season.

Though it came a significant time after the other major leagues in North America gave a woman coach a chance, it was bound to happen eventually in the NHL and — based on her extensive success as both a coach and player — there may be nobody better suited than Campbell to break the mold.

As a player, Campbell starred at Cornell University, where she was a team captain and tallied over 100 career points in NCAA Division 1 hockey. After turning pro, she spent three campaigns with the CWHL's Calgary Inferno before playing professionally oversees in Sweden for a couple of seasons.

When she turned her focus to coaching, things really took off. After launching her power-skating school in 2019, Campbell got her big break during COVID when the NHL suspended its season — leaving many players looking for somewhere to skate and stay in shape during the league's hiatus. That's when, according to the Athletic, childhood friend and NHL star Damon Severson reached out wanting to train with her. Soon, dozens of NHLers followed Severson to Kelowna, British Columbia to skate under Campbell's watch.

From there, Campbell was hired to be an assistant coach of the Coachella Valley Firebirds — the minor-league affiliate of the Kraken — before Seattle's newly hired coach Dan Bylsma brought her with him to the big club for the 2024-25 season.

Despite her track record and impressive background, a handful of internet trolls still showed up to try and mar Tuesday's momentus occasion — much to the chagrin of her droves of supporters who flocked to social media to defend the hockey trailblazer.

None of that noise seems to matter to Campbell, though, who is motivated by a force much stronger than internet hate and negativity.

"It fuels me every day just knowing that I’m a part of something way bigger than myself and my job and my coaching," Campbell said to NHL.com. "By doing this, by showing up every day, by keeping my head in the right space, I know that only good can come of it."

"Hopefully, somebody else will have a door held open for them versus them having to push it open and find ways to unlock it," she added.

The hockey world should be thrilled that Campbell is holding the key.

WEHRMACHT WARNS ABOUT HITLER

Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘most dangerous person to this country,’ new book says

Andrew Feinberg
Fri, October 11, 2024 at 11:29 AM MDT·3 min read

Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘most dangerous person to this country,’ new book says


Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States.

Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a riotous mob of the then-president’s supporters, Woodward writes that Milley insisted on securing a meeting with the then-newly-minted attorney general, Merrick Garland, to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.


According to Woodward, a senior Department of Justice lawyer said at the time that Milley’s sit-down with Garland might have been the first-ever meeting between a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s top civilian law enforcement official. He writes that the general asked for the meeting because he was “deeply convinced” that Trump remained “a danger to the country” even though he had been forced from office after Biden’s election win.

Milley was nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Donald Trump in 2019 (Copyright 2019. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

But the Army veteran expressed even more strident concerns to Woodward himself at a March 2023 meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC.

Woodward writes that when he approached Milley at a reception, the general spoke first and told him: “We gotta talk.”

He told the journalist that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president.

He asked: “Do you realize, do you see what this man is?”

Milley, who had been a source for Woodward’s last book, Peril, said he’d “glimpsed” Trump’s true nature when they previously spoke during the writing of that 2021 release, but he said he now knew exactly what the ex-president is.

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” he said.

“A fascist to the core,” Milley repeated.

The general’s private comments to Woodward, which have not been previously reported, were echoed in cutting remarks Milley made publicly at his September 2023 retirement ceremony, when, without mentioning Trump’s name, he appeared to take a swipe at the ex-president.

In the impassioned speech, he defiantly said the US military is “unique” among the world’s fighting forces because it does not profess fealty to any one person.

Milley retired from the US Army in 2023 (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

““We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator,” he said.

Apparently referencing Trump, he immediately added: “And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator!”

““We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America — and we’re willing to die to protect it,” he said.

Milley calls Trump ‘a fascist to the core’ in new Woodward book

Ellen Mitchell

THE HILL
Fri, October 11, 2024 



Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair and retired Gen. Mark Milley has called former President Trump “a total fascist” and believes he is the most dangerous person to the U.S., according to excerpts from the forthcoming Bob Woodward book.

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” Milley told Woodward for the book “War,” which was previewed by The Guardian. “A fascist to the core.”

Milley, who was chair under Trump and President Biden, also fears he would be court-martialed should Trump win the presidency next month because the commander in chief has power over retired commissioned officers and can recall them to active duty and court-martial them.

Such a situation is not out of the realm of possibility because Trump has often voiced his desire to take revenge on those who have spoken out against him.

“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley warned former colleagues, according to Woodward. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”

Woodward cites Steve Bannon, a former senior Trump adviser, who earlier this year gave a list of people he believes Trump should go after if he is elected to a second term, including Milley, former FBI directors Andrew McCabe and James Comey, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

“We’re gonna hold him accountable,” Bannon says of Milley in the book.

Bannon is in jail for contempt of Congress.

Trump has previously sought to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who have criticized him. In a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump’s second confirmed secretary of Defense, the then-president “yelled” and “shouted” about two former military officials, William McRaven and Stanley McChrystal, Woodward writes.

McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, had written a piece for the Washington Post about Trump, saying “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”

And McChrystal, a retired special forces general whose men killed al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006, made comments on CNN calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest.”

Trump called Milley and Esper to the White House and pushed the two to take care of the retired officials, but they pressed him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal.

“The president didn’t want to hear it,” so Milley promised Trump he would “‘take care of this,’” according to Woodward.

Milley then called McRaven and McChrystal and warned them to “pull it back” and “step off the public stage.”

Woodward also wrote of Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since he retired last year, saying he has installed bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home at his own expense.

Milley has often spoken out against Trump and relayed stories from his time in the Joint Chiefs from 2019 to 2023.

In a speech during his retirement ceremony, Milley infamously appeared to directly refer to Trump, who was then seeking to become the Republican presidential nominee.

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Woodward’s book has also revealed several other bombshells, including that Trump sent COVID-19 testing machines to Russian President Vladimir Putin for personal use in 2020 at the height of the pandemic and that he has had at least seven phone calls with Putin since leaving office.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says

Martin Pengelly in Washington

THE GUARDIAN
Fri, October 11, 2024 

Mark Milley has received ‘a non-stop barrage of death threats’ since his retirement, Bob Woodward writes.Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP


Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.

“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”

Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”

Related: Trump secretly gave Putin Covid test machines, Bob Woodward book says

Trump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.

Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.

Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”

Milley spoke to Woodward for his previous reporting. Woodward now reports the former general as saying: “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.

“A fascist to the core.”

Woodward, 81, made his name in the 1970s with Carl Bernstein during Watergate, the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Woodward’s new blockbuster, War, will be published on Tuesday. His fourth book at least in part about Trump – after Fear, Rage, and Peril – stoked uproar this week with the release of revelations including that Trump sent Covid testing machines to Vladimir Putin early in the coronavirus pandemic, and that Trump has had as many as seven phone calls with the Russian president since leaving office.

Milley was chair of the joint chiefs of staff from 2019 to 2023. His attempts to cope with Trump have been widely reported – particularly in relation to Trump’s demands for military action against protesters for racial justice in the summer of 2020 and, later that year, Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the election to Biden.

Last year, marking his retirement, Milley appeared to take a direct swipe at Trump, then a candidate for a third successive Republican presidential nomination.

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley told a military audience at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Since then, Trump has brushed aside Republican rivals to seize the nomination, campaigned against first Biden then Harris, and survived two assassination attempts. Less than a month from election day, he and Harris are locked in a tight race.

In office, Trump memorably insisted senior military officers owed their loyalty to him, even reportedly telling his second chief of staff, the retired marine general John Kelly, US generals should “be like the German generals” who Trump insisted were “totally loyal” to Adolf Hitler during the second world war. Kelly mentioned military assassination plots against Hitler but Trump was not convinced.

As told by Woodward, in 2020 Trump became enraged by pieces McRaven wrote for the Washington Post and the New York Times – writing in the Post that “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil” – and comments McChrystal made on CNN, calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest”.

“As commander-in-chief” of US armed forces, Woodward writes, “Trump had extraordinary power over retired commissioned officers. It was within his authority to recall them to active duty and court-martial them. But it had only been done a few times in American history and for very serious crimes. For instance, when a retired two-star [general] was charged in 2017 with six counts of raping a minor while on active duty in the 1980s.”

So Trump summoned Milley and Esper. The president demanded action but the two men told him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal, because they had a right to voice their opinions and because it would backfire, drawing attention to their words.

“The president didn’t want to hear it,” Woodward writes.

So Milley switched tack.

“‘Mr President,’ Milley said. ‘I’m the senior military officer responsible for the good order and discipline of general officers and I’ll take care of this.’

“Trump’s head whipped round. ‘You really will?’ he asked skeptically.

“‘Absolutely,’ Milley assured him.

“‘OK, you take care of it,’ President Trump said.”

Such dramatic Oval Office scenes are familiar from previous books by Woodward and legions of competing reporters and former Trump officials. According to Woodward’s new reporting, Milley did take action after fending Trump off, calling McRaven and McChrystal and warning them to “step off the public stage”.

“‘Pull it back,’ Milley said. If Trump actually used his authority to recall them to duty, there was little Milley could do.”

Woodward then quotes Milley speaking this year about his fear that Trump will seek to punish his military critics if he returns to power.

McRaven, now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Milley’s fear of retribution and whether he shared it.

Trump has given such figures plenty of reason to worry. Among proliferating campaign-trail controversies, the former president has frequently voiced his desire for revenge on opponents and critics, including by using the FBI and Department of Justice to mount politically motivated investigations. At rallies, Trump has frequently told crowds: “I am your retribution.”

The Utah senator Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, was recently asked about possible consequences of his own opposition to Trump including votes to convict in both his impeachment trials.

Related: Trump took ‘British naval secrets’ to Mar-a-Lago, says Christopher Steele

“I think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,” a “suddenly subdued” Romney told the Atlantic. “So I would take him at his word.”

Woodward also reports Milley’s harrowing experiences since stepping down as chair of the joint chiefs.

“Since retiring, Milley had received a non-stop barrage of death threats that he, at least in part, attributed to Trump’s repeated attempts to discredit him.

“‘He is inciting people to violence with violent rhetoric,’ Milley told his wife. ‘But he does it in such a way it’s through the power of suggestion, which is exactly what he did on 6 January” 2021, the day Trump incited supporters to attack Congress, in hope of overturning his election defeat.

“As a former chairman, Milley was provided round-the-clock government security for two years. But he had taken additional precautions at significant personal expense, installing bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home.”

WHIPSAWING

Boeing stock slides as company plans to cut 17,000 jobs, delays jet delivery amid labor strike


Ines Ferré · Senior Business Reporter
Updated Fri, October 11, 2024 at 3:34 PM MDT 4 min read


Boeing stock (BA) slid 2% in after-hours trading Friday as the company said it would cut its workforce by 10%, or roughly 17,000 jobs, and delay the first delivery of its 777X jet to 2026 amid an ongoing worker strike.

"Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together," CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a message to employees posted on Boeing's website. "Beyond navigating our current environment, restoring our company requires tough decisions and we will have to make structural changes to ensure we can stay competitive and deliver for our customers over the long term."


He added that the job cuts would include executives, managers, and employees. Boeing had roughly 171,000 employees as of December 2023, according to an SEC filing.

"We've got an aircraft manufacturer that's in very, very deep trouble. What they did here is not a drill," Mike Boyd, president of aviation consulting firm Boyd Group International, told Yahoo Finance on Friday following the job cut announcement.

An ongoing strike by Boeing's biggest union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), is proving costly on several fronts for the company.

The work stoppage has interrupted the company's recovery efforts, which include ramping up production of its bestselling 737 Max jets to 38 per month by the end of the year, up from roughly 25 per month in June and July.

Estimates from S&P Global put the cost of the strike at roughly $1 billion per month after taking into consideration cost-saving measures the company has taken in response to it.

Earlier this week, the credit rating agency placed Boeing on CreditWatch Negative, which increased the likelihood of a downgrade if the work stoppage continues until the end of the year. Riskier credit makes it more difficult and expensive for companies to borrow money.

S&P expects Boeing will incur a cash outflow of approximately $10 billion in 2024.

As a result, Wall Street analysts expect Boeing will need to raise cash through an equity offering. At the end of the second quarter, Boeing had roughly $58 billion in total debt and $12.6 billion in cash.

“Based on our conversations with investors, it should be no surprise that Boeing is looking at an equity raise. We think most investors have been expecting the company to raise more than $10B, most likely following the conclusion of the machinists strike," JPMorgan analyst Seth Seifman and his team wrote in a recent note.

The analysts note the size of the raise could be determined by how long the strike lasts, and investors would be more reluctant to sign on with one still underway.


Earlier in the week, the plane maker took a tougher stance with the union after a breakdown in negotiations this week left little hope of a quick resolution to the strike.

On Thursday, the plane maker filed an unfair labor practice charge against representatives of IAM.

Boeing workers wave picket signs to passing drivers as they strike after union members voted to reject a contract offer Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, near the company's factory in Everett, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) · ASSOCIATED PRESS

Boeing said as a result of mediation this week, the company made further improvements to a prior offer, but "the union did not seriously consider these proposals and continues to insist on unreasonable demands."

"The union’s public narrative is misleading and making it difficult to find a solution for our employees. We remain committed to reaching a compromise to end the strike," said a Boeing statement.

The move comes days after bargaining talks involving mediators broke down and the plane manufacturer withdrew its contract proposal on Tuesday.


IAM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"That’s just a move from [Boeing] to create some pressure. But just like most strikes ... it’s going to end by them going back to the table and figuring it out," New York City-based employment attorney Nicole Brenecki told Yahoo Finance.

Union members walked off the job on Sept. 13 after rejecting a tentative contract. After the third round of negotiations broke down Tuesday, the union said Boeing refused to propose any wage increases or vacation and sick leave accrual and would not reinstate a benefit pension.

IAM has a rally planned for Tuesday.

Boeing stock is down roughly 40% year to date.

Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.

Boeing files unfair labor practice charge against striking union



Updated Thu, October 10, 2024
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Boeing said late on Thursday it had filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the union representing its striking U.S. West Coast factory workers, accusing the leaders of not bargaining in good faith.

The charge is the latest sign of the growing acrimony and increasing frustration in the labor talks as the strike by about 33,000 union members enters its fifth week and piles financial pressure on the struggling planemaker.


Boeing said on Tuesday it had withdrawn its latest pay offer to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers after two days of talks with federal mediators, citing the union's refusal to seriously consider its proposals.

In a filing with the NLRB, Boeing also accused the union's leaders of misrepresenting the terms of Boeing's offer to its members and of not bringing negotiators to the table with authority to make a deal.

Boeing said the union had engaged in a "pattern of bad faith bargaining" and its "public narrative is misleading and making it difficult to find a solution for our employees."

The union said on Tuesday that Boeing was "hell-bent" about sticking to its "best and final" proposal of a 30% wage increase over four years that it offered last month after the strike began. The union had declined to put the proposal to its members for a vote and said this week it planned a new survey of members.

Boeing noted the union later acknowledged the planemaker had improved its offer, with IAM 751 president and lead negotiator Jon Holden telling Reuters on Wednesday that the proposed changes were "meager".

The union did not immediately respond to request for comment on Thursday. More than 90% of its members voted down an offer for a 25% pay rise last month and it has been seeking a 40% wage increase and the restoration of a defined-benefit pension it agreed to give up in 2014.

Boeing said it remained committed to reaching a compromise to end the strike, which has halted production of its best-selling 737 MAX as well as its older 767 and 777 wide-body programs.

Last month, IAM 751 filed unfair labor practice charges against Boeing. No result has been announced.

The planemaker said it had reluctantly decided to file its charge to "respond to the IAM's legal filings, and to ensure the NLRB other interested parties have an accurate picture of the events of the past few weeks."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said earlier on Thursday it was increasingly important to see a resolution to the strike.

"The solution is going to be one that supports workers, that's compatible with the business succeeding," Buttigieg told reporters at the department's headquarters. "We think both those things are absolutely compatible, and there's a deal to be had."

Asked when the labor stoppage impact would cause concerns about the broader airplane supply chain, Buttigieg did not specify a date but said with "each passing day it becomes more important... for them to come to terms."

A letter sent on Wednesday from 30 House Democrats to Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and the union representing the striking workers urged the two sides to bargain in good faith to reach a fair contract in a "timely manner."

To conserve cash, Boeing put thousands of white-collar staff on rolling furloughs and said it would freeze most parts orders except for the 787, made in South Carolina. It also faces a risk of losing its investment grade credit rating.

The Boeing machinist strike is nearing the 1-month mark. Where do things stand?

Melvin Backman
Thu, October 10, 2024 

Boeing workers on a picket line - Photo: Stephen Brashear (Getty Images)

The latest news: Striking Boeing workers are ‘in this for the long haul,’ union leader says

As the Boeing (BA) machinist strike threatens to drag into its fourth week with no end in sight, it remains unclear where things go from here. The company is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed cash, but that hasn’t prompted it to strike a deal.

In fact, it broke off talks with the union representing the workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, telling Reuters that “further negotiations do not make sense at this point.”

An earlier labor dispute this year between the planemaker and 125 unionized firefighters gave a sense that the company was gearing up to play hardball. After more than two months of the negotiations it locked them out, an inverse of a strike where a company refuses to let its employees work until an agreement is reached.

The Associated Press reported that the firefighters ratified a contract after three weeks (and some prompting from President Joe Biden), but the machinist strike is much larger, disruptive, and has higher stakes — observers are expecting it to dent the November jobs report and weigh on national GDP figures for the rest of the year.
A pay dispute

After months of negotiations, the company reached a tentative agreement with the union in September for a contract that would see members get a 25% raise. Newly installed Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg begged the machinists to ratify the contract and not walk off the job.

The 30,000-plus machinists had been negotiating their contract in full for the first time since 2008. The IAM seeking a 40% raise, though, so members rejected the tentative agreement and kicked off the strike — as they had promised to do in a 96%-in-favor authorization vote.

“We walk the walk and talk the talk in the Labor Movement,” the union’s negotiating committee said at the time. “We stand on business, and now it’s time to show them we aren’t going anywhere.”

Some analysts had expected that Boeing would be facing as much as $1 billion a year in extra costs if it gave the union what it wanted, but paychecks aren’t the only remuneration keeping the two sides apart. The union is also seeking the restoration of its pension, which Boeing killed in 2014 in one of the contract extensions.
Bad-faith bargaining accusations

After the first week and a half of the strike, Boeing sweetened the pot, teasing a 30% raise. There was a catch, though: The company said the bump was its “best and final” offer. The union called that a “blatant show of disrespect.” It wasn’t just because of how much the number fell short of the IAM’s ask, but also how it was communicated.

“Your Negotiating Committee did not have any discussion or input on this offer,” the union told its members. “We have said all along that the Union would be available for direct talks with Boeing or, at a minimum, expected to continue mediated discussions when the company was ready. These direct dealing tactics are a huge mistake, damage the negotiation process, and attempt to go around and bypass your Union negotiating committee.”

The “direct dealing” references to how Boeing publicized its offer, which the union said was an effort to cut it out from contract negotiations. That’s forbidden under federal labor law because it undermines the collective bargaining process.

“We first presented the offer to the union and then transparently shared the details with our employees,” is how Boeing characterized it at the time.

Since then, the company has also cut off the Boeing workers from their company healthcare plans.

Last week, just before the most recent round of negotiations was announced, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, the senior whip in the Democratic Party House caucus and the congressperson representing the district where much of Boeing’s operations are based, pushed the company to resume bargaining.

“I hope to see Boeing and the machinists come back to the table to work in good faith to address the issues of fair wages and pensions,” she said.

A recovery on pause

In the background of the strike is the ongoing fallout — primarily stemming from a door plug blowout aboard a 737 Max 9 plane in January — which has contributed to Boeing shares falling 40% this year. The incident, which prompted a great deal of scrutiny from federal regulators, hampered the company’s efforts to come back from the last 737 Max crisis when two Max 8 planes crashed months apart in 2018 and 2019.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has ramped up its oversight of Boeing’s operations after admitting that it had been “too hands-off,” imposed a cap on the number of 737 Max planes the company can build. Even before the machinists’ work stoppage, the company was bleeding billions of dollars at a time amid reduced deliveries.

Ahead of the strike, Boeing reportedly tried to speed up production of some models using the same stop-and-start manufacturing methods that it was trying to reduce in the wake of the door plug scandal. That’s because the models produced by the IAM-represented workers make up nearly 90% of Boeing’s commercial airliner order book.

For every day that its assembly lines are shut down, Bank of America (BAC) analyst Ron Epstein told Quartz that the company is likely losing $50 million in cash a day, money it needs. Its investment-grade credit rating is hanging on by a thread; several ratings agencies putting the planemaker on watch for a cut to junk-bond territory. Should that happen, it would make Boeing’s problems much more expensive to fix because its borrowing costs would jump.

“If the strike goes beyond a certain point — I wish I could tell you, maybe a month? — the risk increases,” Epstein said. “If you get beyond a month, things get more disruptive.”

Having initially figured that the machinists would get their 40% raise and get back to business as usual, he expressed surprise that Boeing is holding out for as long as it is.

“At a point, they have to get back in the business of building airplanes,” he said.

Boeing Would Be Biggest-Ever US ‘Fallen Angel’ If Cut to Junk

Caleb Mutua
Thu, October 10, 2024 

(Bloomberg) — If cut to junk status, Boeing Co. will be the biggest US corporate borrower to ever be stripped of its investment-grade ratings and join junk bond indexes, flooding the high-yield market with a record volume of new debt to absorb

On Tuesday, S&P Global Ratings said it’s considering downgrading the planemaker to junk as strikes at its manufacturing sites persist, hurting production. Last month, Moody’s Ratings said it’s considering a similar move. Fitch Ratings has highlighted the growing risks but not yet announced a review.

Downgrades to junk from two of Boeing’s three major credit graders would leave much of its $52 billion of outstanding long-term debt ineligible for inclusion in investment-grade indexes. If that happens, Boeing would become the biggest ever fallen angel — industry parlance for a company that’s lost its investment-grade ratings — by index-eligible debt, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts.

“Boeing has worn out its welcome in the investment-grade index,” said Bill Zox, a portfolio manager at Brandywine Global Investment Management. “But the high-yield index would be honored to welcome Boeing and its many coupon step-ups.”

A spokesperson for Boeing declined to comment for this story.


‘Idiosyncratic Credit Situation’

Chief Financial Officer Brian West told analysts at a Morgan Stanley conference last month that Boeing “will take any necessary actions” to preserve its investment grade rating and stabilize its factory and supply chain. Boeing has already initiated a savings plan that includes furloughs for workers, a hiring freeze as well as a pay cut for executives.

JPMorgan isn’t taking a view on the likelihood of Boeing transitioning to junk or what such a transition would mean for its credit fundamentals, strategists led by Eric Beinstein and Nathaniel Rosenbaum wrote in a Thursday note.

There could be a relatively seamless transition, the strategists wrote. Credit spreads are tight trading conditions are relatively liquid trading in both the high-grade and high-yield markets, the strategists wrote. Much of of Boeing’s debt has a coupon step-up feature — where the interest rate increases by 0.25 percentage point for each step below investment-grade that each ratings firm downgrades by, which could make it more palatable to some investors, including insurers.



“Usually downgrades from high-grade to high-yield are clustered together around economic downturns or crisis,” the analysts wrote. “This is an idiosyncratic credit situation, should a downgrade occur. No other large fallen angel has ever transitioned at such tight spreads.”

The corporate bond market has swelled in recent years, so even if Boeing has more debt than other borrowers have had historically, it takes up a smaller part of the investment-grade universe. The company makes up just 0.7% of Bloomberg’s US corporate investment-grade bond index. When Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. were downgraded in 2005, they took up 8.3% and 3% of the high-grade market respectively, according to JPMorgan.

But there are also reasons for the transition to potentially result in big price moves for the company’s debt. Boeing’s $52 billion debt load is big by junk issuer standards. And it has a relatively high proportion of longer-dated debt, while most high-yield investors focus on shorter- and intermediate-term securities to help manage credit risk.


High-grade and high-yield funds, which pool together bonds according to factors like credit quality and maturity to pay regular returns to investors, could also be impacted. More passive fund investors have piled into the high-grade market over the years, which would mean a higher volume of “forced sellers” if Boeing is downgraded, according to JPMorgan.

“I would expect a fair amount of index-related selling as the debt changes hands between the investment-grade and high-yield markets,” said Scott Kimball, chief investment officer at Loop Capital Asset Management. “It wouldn’t surprise me if things got ugly as high-yield investors aren’t as beholden to benchmarks, generally.”

Since active high-yield managers are not going be “forced buyers,” they will have a greater degree of price-setting power, according to Kimball.

“The liquidity transfer costs are real,” he said. “High-yield buyers, being less index-focused, are the ones setting the price. It’s the opposite of upgrades where passive money is more prevalent.”

(Updates with comment from Boeing CFO from conference in paragraph six)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

A United Boeing 787 with 176 people on board had to divert after the pilot's screens went blank over remote northern Canada

Pete Syme,Nathan Rennolds
Thu, October 10, 2024 

A United Boeing 787 with 176 people on board had to divert after the pilot's screens went blank over remote northern Canada


A United Airlines flight diverted to Chicago after cockpit screens went blank.


The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was flying over Canada's Hudson Bay.


Pilots could still use some autopilot systems and communicate with the ground via satellite and radio.

A United Airlines plane diverted and made an unplanned landing after cockpit screens went blank while it was flying over Canada's far north.

The incident occurred on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating Flight 231 from Los Angeles to London on September 26. The airline told Business Insider that there were 165 passengers and 11 crew members on board.

According to a Transportation Safety Board of Canada report, while over Hudson Bay, the "captain's primary flight display and navigation display failed to a blank display."


Both flight management computers also entered "a degraded mode with limited capabilities."

The TSBC's report added that this meant the plane was left without lateral navigation or LNAV — an autopilot mode that involves following a programmed flight path.

An emergency was declared, and the 787 changed course toward Chicago.

Pilots could still use some other key autopilot features and communicate with the ground via satellite and radio.

Despite the computer difficulties, the pilots used "alternate navigation and vectors" to land at Chicago O'Hare International Airport without further incident.

In a statement shared with Business Insider, a United Airlines spokesperson confirmed that the plane diverted "to address a potential technology issue."

"The flight landed safely and all passengers deplaned normally at the gate," they added. "We arranged for a different aircraft to take our customers to their destination."

The TSBC recorded the incident as a class 5 occurrence, meaning it is not subject to a comprehensive investigation.

Last week, United Airlines was cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration after a six-month safety review. The regulator said it found no "significant safety issues" following several incidents early in 2024, including a tire falling off a Boeing 777 during takeoff.

Read the original article on Business Insider

British Airways cancels hundreds of flights because of Rolls-Royce engine issues

Chris Price
Fri, October 11, 2024 at 12:27 PM MDT·46 min read

BA canceled the flights because of excessive wear and tear to their Trent 1000 engines - Patrick Pleul/EPA


British Airways scrapped hundreds of long-haul flights as maintenance issues with its Rolls-Royce jet engines grounded aircraft.

The carrier has halted the launch of services to Malaysia, halved frequencies to Qatar and suspended services between Gatwick airport and New York JFK – affecting travel plans for thousands of people.

BA said it was forced into the measures because of excessive wear and tear to the Trent 1000 engines that power its fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets.


Rolls-Royce has been unable to supply enough replacement engines and parts to keep all of the 787s flying, leading five to be grounded. This equates to 15pc of the fleet.

Boeing 777s, which had been standing in for the stricken planes, have also been overworked to such an extent that they too require visits to the workshop.

A BA spokesperson said: “We’ve taken this action because we do not believe the issue will be solved quickly, and we want to offer our customers the certainty they deserve

“We’ve apologised to those affected and are able to offer the vast majority a flight the same day with British Airways or one of our partner airlines.

“We continue to work closely with Rolls-Royce to ensure the company is aware of the impact its issues are having on our schedule and customers, and seek reassurance of a prompt and reliable solution.”

BA said the launch of a new Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur route will be delayed from November to April next year.

One of two daily trips from Heathrow to Doha will be scrapped until March, while flights from Gatwick to JFK will be suspended from early December for the whole of the winter season.

BA warned there will also be a number of cancellations on other long-haul routes between now and January.

It said the bulk of passengers affected will be accommodated on its own flights, including eight daily services from Heathrow to New York, or with partners including Qatar Airways.

The carrier had already scrapped 11 round-trip services due to the Rolls-Royce issues. It is understood that the situation has been exacerbated by a strike over pay at Boeing, which has held up supplies of some other parts.

BA has started to contact customers whose flights have been cancelled to offer alternative travel arrangements and laying the blame squarely at the door of Rolls.

“Unfortunately, Rolls-Royce, our engine supplier for our fleet of Boeing 787 aircraft, is experiencing challenges,” it said.

“We’re not the only airline experiencing this issue and are doing all we can to work with Rolls-Royce to resolve the situation.”

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said: “We continue to work with British Airways and all of our customers to minimise the impact of the limited availability of spares due to the current supply chain constraints. Unfortunately, this is an issue affecting the whole aerospace industry.”

Mexico passes inflation-matching minimum-wage reform

Reuters
Wed, October 9, 2024

A woman carries a package of meat in a butcher's shop, in Monterrey


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Senate unanimously passed a constitutional reform guaranteeing the country's minimum wage will be revised annually to at least match inflation.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Around four in 10 Mexicans earn the minimum wage or less. The reform is meant to cement a floor for annual wage increases, although the previous administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador backed some of the highest wage increases in decades.


His successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has promised annual minimum wage increases of about 12%.

CONTEXT

The reform, which already passed in the lower house, had been proposed by Lopez Obrador before leaving office. Congress is currently working through a long list of constitutional reforms sent by Lopez Obrador, including a controversial judicial reform that passed last month.

BY THE NUMBERS

The minimum wage in Latin America's No. 2 economy currently stands at 248.93 pesos ($12.80) a day.

Sheinbaum has said her government will work to gradually raise the minimum wage to cover the cost of 2.5 basic food baskets, or a standardized list of common grocery items for two people to live on per day, up from the current 1.6.

KEY QUOTE:

"Mexicans' wages will no longer fall victim to inflation," ruling party Senator Oscar Canton said. "We urgently need a Mexico where the minimum wage no longer sentences someone to a life of poverty."

WHAT'S NEXT

The reform will now be sent to state legislatures for vote. It is expected to pass in a majority of states.

($1 = 19.4540 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Kylie Madry; Editing by Jamie Freed)

Mexico’s Congress Guarantees Minimum Wage Rises Above Inflation

Maya Averbuch
Wed, October 9, 2024 



(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s Congress approved a constitutional reform proposed by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that would require annual minimum wage increases be higher than the previous year’s annual inflation rate.

The Senate unanimously approved the proposal submitted to guarantee that Mexicans’ purchasing power is not eroded by annual price increases.

The change would not have an immediate impact on the lowest salaries, since Sheinbaum said that they would increase roughly 12% in 2025 and by a similar amount in future years. But analysts say the law could have a greater impact if inflation rises beyond current levels of about 5%.

“The main concern is how do we start to wind down the increases so that they become sustainable in the long-run,” said Luis Monroy-Gomez-Franco, assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Sheinbaum, who took power at the start of October, has made continuous calls for improvements to the minimum wage after it formed a cornerstone of Lopez Obrador’s bid to better the lives of working Mexicans.

It increased by about 151% in real terms during Lopez Obrador’s six-year administration. The pace of changes overseen by the ex president would, if continued, constrain Mexico’s fiscal space, according to analysts that have warned businesses could eventually limit their staffing due to the measure. Sheinbaum set softer hikes.

During Lopez Obrador’s term “the increases of the minimum wage were of a magnitude that haven’t been seen in the last 40 years in the country in real terms,” which would be unsustainable for many more years, for which reason Sheinbaum “set a clearer goal,” Monroy-Gomez-Franco said.

Mexico’s inflation in the last decade has not risen above 8.7%, the level it reached in 2022. Its last period of historic runaway inflation was in the mid-1990s, when inflation spiked to around 52% in annual terms.

Sheinbaum has said that the minimum wage should be the equivalent of the price of two and a half basic baskets of goods by 2030. Now that it has been approved by Congress, the bill will pass to state legislatures — where the ruling coalition holds large majorities — before Sheinbaum’s administration publishes it into law.

The ruling coalition was able to pass the bill since it has close to the two-thirds majority needed in both houses of congress to make changes to the constitution.

The bill is part of a package of changes to the constitution proposed by the ex president that the new Congress has vowed to pass by December.

--With assistance from Alex Vasquez.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.