Union machinists are to strike the Boeing Co. beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday as last-ditch talks failed to produce a new contract proposal acceptable to union negotiators.

In a message to the union's 27,000 members in the Puget Sound area, Portland and Wichita late this afternoon, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District President Tom Wroblewski said the new talks weren't fruitful.

"Despite meeting late into the night and throughout the day, continued contract talks with the Boeing Company did not address our issues," Wroblewski told union members on the union's Web site.

"Armed with your strong strike vote, the IAM negotiating committee continues to try and convince the Company to meet our members' demands," the local president said.

The strike is expected to halt all commercial airplane production at Boeing's Renton and Everett assembly plants as well as parts production at the Auburn and Frederickson sites.

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I had coffee this morning with David Madeira, CEO of the LeMay Automobile Museum, and he offered an update on yesterday’s quarterly meeting of the museum board.
A few points:

• The museum has received a major corporate donation from AAA Washington – in fact, it’s the largest such donation to date. The organization is donating $1.6 million, with 20 percent going to the operations budget and 80 percent to the building fund of the Collector Car Center.

For the donation, AAA Washington receives naming rights to “AAA Heritage Row,” a quarter-mile long esplanade that will wind its way through the museum.
The gift, Madeira said, “is a good shot in the arm during a difficult time. It puts us within $15 million of the goal for the first phase. It puts us at 75 percent of our first phase goal.”

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The Machinists Union told its 27,000 members in the Puget Sound area, Portland and Wichita today to assume that its strike against the Boeing Co. is on at midnight tonight unless they hear otherwise.

Union and company representatives are meeting in Orlando today to attempt to craft a new proposal the union negotiators can recommend to members.

Machinists Wednesday voted 80 percent to reject Boeing's "best and final offer" and 87 percent to authorize a strike against the company.

But union leaders put the strike on hold for 48 hours after Boeing agreed to meet in new talks with a federal mediator in an attempt to avoid a strike.

Union activists at the ballot counting session Wednesday night erupted in catcalls when the union's chief negotiator, Mark Blondin, announced the 48-hour hiatus.

For updated information, see the union's Web site.

Airlines worldwide ordered seven new Boeing airliners this week, all of them the popular 737.

Ireland's low-cost carrier Ryanair ordered four 737-800s; Turkey's Saga Airlines placed orders for two 737s, and SAS ordered one of the twinjets.

Those orders bring 737 orders for the year to 456.

Total orders for all aircraft are 586 in 2008. In second place in order popularity is the twin-aisle 787 Dreamliner with 78 orders.

The new Microsoft ads are out. You know, the ones with Jerry Seinfeld.

The ads feature humorous conversations between Seinfeld and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. The initial spot made its debut last night during the season’s first National Football League game as the New York Giants beat the Washington Redskins 16-7, Bloomberg News reports.

Here's what you will see: The first spot shows Seinfeld and Gates shopping at a discount shoe store, then leaving the store eating churros, a fried pastry. It also features the Microsoft founder adjusting his underwear and ends with the tagline “the future delicious” and the Windows logo.

The conversation between the two will continue in future ads.

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Boeing and its largest union, the Machinists, continue to work on a new contract that would avoid a strike tomorrow morning. We don't know a lot about what's going on – the union and the company wants to negotiate in private.

But today a Wall Street analyst that watches Boeing said a strike could cost the company $2.8 billion.

“Boeing will cease commercial aircraft production under strike conditions,” analyst Ronald Epstein wrote in a research note reported by Bloomberg News. “Aircraft close to delivery will be delivered to airlines willing to cross picket lines, but all other deliveries will cease.”

A strike would have “long-term consequences” for the company’s commercial aircraft workforce in the Seattle region and may cost the Chicago-based company $2.8 billion in lost revenue per month and $290 million in earnings before interest and taxes, Epstein wrote in a note to clients.

The world’s biggest brokerage maintained the “buy” recommendation it has had on the stock for at least three years and its $73 share-price forecast. Almost half of the analysts who cover Boeing recommend buying the shares, according to Bloomberg data.