Sum Ting Wong

Who said they were leaving Seattle in it's entirety?

Management chose to minimize the cost of doing business and unions chose to maximize their wages and benefits. It might seem both could have compromised, but Boeing has other choices too - there are workers elsewhere who could choose to work for less than those in WA state.

Nowhere in Puget Sound can these workers earn a fraction of the money that they can earn at Boeing.
They resisted (I see nothing about their contract being 're-opened, this was for future work). Boeing offered a $10,000 signing bonus, having future retirement monies subject to a defined contribution plan, having to pay higher co-pay amounts for healthcare costs. Apparently the prospect of future work was just too much of a sacrifice for these workers who earn about $60-70,000 per year before overtime and with much vacation time.

They remind me of the unionized autoworkers who felt that they were indispensable until the factories closed and production moved to the South and to Mexico.

I can understand the frustration of the workers because they bailed out 787 production after management took a McDonnell-Douglas approach to subcontract out nearly all work except for final assembly and that cost the company billions. The workers also kept the cash flowing with record 737 production. when the company needed that cash due to the drain of revenue shortfalls from delayed deliveries, of paying to correct the manufacture of the 787, and of paying penalties to airlines suffering from delayed deliveries.

Unfortunately for the Puget Sound machinists, many just voted themselves out of future employment later this decade and beyond. They would have been clever to take this deal as their leverage would have increased once Boeing constructed the 777X in Everett.

In any event, the chest-thumping shop stewards who exhorted the "no" vote won't lose their jobs; they never do.