The Boeing machinists are in their third week of strike with no talks scheduled. Many are expecting this to be longer than the 28-day strike in 2005, perhaps lasting until the holidays.

The strike has shut down Boeing assembly lines, which is causing adjustments across the street at Boeing's biggest parts supplier, Spirit Aerosystems.

Many at Spirit have gone to a three-day work week. So far, however, plenty of the engineers have had plenty of work to do and have not had to cut back their days.

The three-day week has quieted the shop floor on Mondays and Fridays.

"You usually hear all the rivets bucking and it's loud. On Friday it was
dead quiet," said Spirit engineer Kevin Huynh.

With no end in sight, the pain of this strike continues on both sides of
Oliver.