Machinists

The recession has decimated many fields, but the manufacturing sector -- once given up for dead -- is making a big comeback, thanks in part to a revived U.S. auto industry. It's greatest among computer-controlled machine tool operators, an occupation that now has more workers than in 2007, according to a new ...

It's been a long, hot summer for many working Americans, but perhaps none more so than the nearly 800 unionized employees at Caterpillar in Joliet, Ill., who have been walking the picket line in near-triple-digit heat on some days for nearly three months. Despite the oppressive temps, picketing workers ...

By Hope Yen SEATTLE (AP) -- Applause and cheers rang out after Unionized Boeing Machinists voted overwhelmingly to approve a four-year contract extension - a deal that grants the company labor peace and likely ends a federal complaint that had become a hot topic for Republican presidential ...

By Gene Johnson SEATTLE (AP) -- Some unionized workers at Boeing say they hope their vote Wednesday on a four-year contract extension augurs a new, peaceful era in their relations with the company. The Machinists union announced last week that it reached a tentative deal following secret talks initiated ...

By Sam Hananel and Gene Johnson SEATTLE (AP) -- As Boeing executive Jim Albaugh spoke to an aerospace conference in New York, recent strikes by the company's workers in Washington state weren't far from his mind. "We've had strikes three out of the last four times that we've gone to the table with the ...

Machining helps drive industry in America. Without precision-made parts, many of the products that people rely on day in and day out wouldn't function properly for very long -- if at all. The process involves the use of a wide variety of machine tools to cut or form material, usually metal, to precise shapes ...