It’s been a little over a month, since more than 30,000 Boeing Machinists walked off the job after voting overwhelmingly against a tentative contract. Since then, costs and tensions have only increased.

The strike increases pressure on Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, who was hired over the summer to address the plane maker’s various problems. The strike, which S&P Global Ratings estimates is costing Boeing more than $1 billion a month, caps an already difficult year that began with a near-catastrophic bursting of a door plug on the 737 Max and comes six years after the first of two fatal Max crashes follows traditional manufacturers in constant crisis mode.

The union and the company remain at an impasse, and aircraft production has been halted at factories in the Seattle area and elsewhere, depriving Boeing of cash. Boeing last week withdrew a sweetened contract offer that the union rejected, saying it had not been negotiated.

Boeing officials expressed optimism to airline customers that a deal could be reached in the weeks before the original vote, according to people familiar with the matter.

But this optimism did not come true, as workers voted 95% against a first provisional collective agreement on September 13th.

“They need to increase their supply. There is no doubt about that,” said Harry Katz, a professor of collective bargaining at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But he said one of the union’s demands, a return to a pension plan, was unlikely and estimated the strike could last another two to five weeks.

The process to end the strike has become more difficult as federally mediated talks broke down in midweek.

Boeing said Thursday that it has filed an unfair labor practices lawsuit with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union of negotiating in bad faith and misrepresenting the plane makers’ proposals.

Late Friday, Jon Holden, president of the striking workers’ union IAM District 751, urged a return to negotiations.

“CEO Ortberg has an opportunity to do things differently, rather than repeating the same old, tired labor relations threats that intimidate and oppress anyone who opposes them,” he said in a statement. “Ultimately it will be our membership that will decide whether a negotiated contract offer is accepted. They want a solution that is negotiated and responsive to their needs.”

Boeing’s union machinists are not receiving paychecks and lost their company-sponsored health insurance at the end of September. However, unlike the last Boeing factory strike in 2008, there is more contract work in the Seattle area to help workers pick up the slack. Vacancies such as driving for food delivery and warehouse work are posted on a union forum.

After the market closed on Friday, Ortberg said the company planned to reduce its global workforce by about 10% “in the coming months,” including layoffs of executives, managers and employees.

He also told employees that Boeing will stop producing commercial 767 freighters when it meets its backlog in 2027 and that deliveries of its 777X will be delayed another year, until 2026.

The surprise cuts came with surprise preliminary financial results that showed widening losses: Boeing said it expected a third-quarter loss of nearly $10 per share and that it would face charges of about $5 in its commercial and defense divisions Billions of US dollars would be incurred. The manufacturer has not made an annual profit since 2018. Ortberg will face investors in his first full earnings release as CEO on October 23rd.

“The thing is, once they get 737 production going, all their money problems will be solved, but they’re not willing to settle for that,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory. “They are laying off a lot of people who could make that (stable production) possible. It seems like they’re burning down their own house, so to speak.”

Aboulafia estimates that the labor involved in final assembly of an aircraft accounts for about 5% of the aircraft’s cost.

Ortberg is now tasked with raising money and stopping the blood loss as the company’s losses mount. Shares of Boeing have fallen 42% this year through Friday’s close, their biggest decline since 2008.

“We also need to focus our resources on performance and innovation in the areas that are core to us, rather than spreading ourselves across too many efforts that can often lead to poor performance and under-investment,” Ortberg said Friday in a message to employees.

S&P Global Ratings warned the company last week that it was at risk of being downgraded to junk status as suspended production of Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max and its 767 and 777s was costing the company more than $1 billion a month. The estimate includes previously announced cost reductions such as temporary furloughs, a hiring freeze and a halt to most orders for affected aircraft.

Boeing has faced “quality, labor relations, program execution and cash burn issues that appear to have resulted in a continuous vicious cycle,” Bank of America aerospace analyst Ron Epstein said in a note Friday. He said Boeing’s early financial announcement on Friday likely indicated it was planning an equity raise of up to $15 billion.

The announced job cuts come as Boeing and the rest of the aerospace supply chain worked to hire and train new machinists and other specialists following buyouts and layoffs of thousands of employees during the pandemic.

The instability at Boeing could extend to its suppliers. Boeing’s 737 fuselage maker, Spirit AeroSystemsis considering furloughing workers as part of its contingency plans to cut costs, a spokesman said, adding it had not yet made any decisions. Boeing is in the process of taking over this company.

“They’re probably telling us a story about cost savings that they’re pushing through,” Aboulafia said of Boeing’s recent cost cuts. “When did things not working stop them from trying again?”