MONTREAL (Reuters) – Montreal-area Sonaca workers who produce parts for Boeing’s 787 as well as business jet makers Bombardier and Gulfstream voted by 98% this week to authorize a strike, their union said on Tuesday.
Workers at the plant, a subsidiary of Belgian aerospace supplier Sonaca, can legally strike as of 2025 if talks fail to produce a labor agreement, where a key issue is higher pay, said Benoit Pepin, president of the union local represented by the Confederation des syndicats nationaux.
It’s the latest case of labor tensions in the aerospace industry that is grappling with shortages of parts and workers while seeing ripple effects from a five-week strike by more than 33,000 U.S. West Coast Boeing employees.
Sonaca’s Montreal plant manufactures wing and tail section aerostructures for commercial and business aviation, including horizontal empennage spars for the Boeing 787, which is produced in South Carolina and not impacted by the planemaker’s strike.
A spokesperson for Sonaca’s Montreal plant was not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Mark Porter)
