TUKWILA — Members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, voted to reject a 4-year labor contract offer from Boeing and simultaneously authorize a strike if a contract extension can’t be approved before the current contract’s expiration date on October 6.
Members of SPEEA’s Professional Unit, which represents nearly 13,000 engineers and scientists at Boeing, rejected their proposed contract with 64.3% no vote, 7,238 to 4,027. Members of SPEEA’s Technical Unit, which represents more than 4,000 analysts, designers, technicians and other specialists, rejected their proposed contract with a 71.9% no vote, 2,795 to 1,094.
Professional Unit members approved strike authorization with an 87.8% vote in favor. Technical Unit members approved strike authorization with an 89.7% vote. According to SPEEA, 92% of eligible union members voted.
SPEEA tells the EverettPost.com they are ready to resume talks with Boeing but added union negotiators plan to immediately survey members of the bargaining unit to see what it will take to get them to approve a contract with Boeing. Then they will seek to resume bargaining with the company, but retain the ability to call a strike should it be deemed necessary.
In a press release SPEEA stated, “Our negotiation team is prepared and willing to work with the company toward meaningful movement so that we can come to agreement on new contracts before Oct. 6. However, we also are prepared to call for a labor stoppage, based on the overwhelming support of our members for the strike authorization vote.”
In late July, a tentative agreement was reached on a 4-year labor contract with Boeing and the SPEEA negotiation team. SPEEA’s negotiation team had unanimously endorsed Boeing’s proposed contracts for the professional and technical units based on aggregate wage pool increases of 29.4% over four years, which were cited as the largest wage-pool increase for SPEEA members since 1983. Boeing also proposed three extra days of paid leave annually with lower limits on mandatory overtime and more opportunities for virtual work. And Boeing proposed twice-annual meetings between the union and senior executives to discuss future work deployment, as well as a joint labor-management committee on the use of Artificial Intelligence.
But as the SPEEA negotiation team began laying out the proposal to the union’s broader membership, it became clear that SPEEA members deeply mistrust Boeing management, the SPEEA negotiators said.
The Bargaining Unit Council for the Technical Unit voted to recommend its contract be rejected; the Bargaining Unit Council for the Professional Unit couldn’t muster the required 60% supermajority for a recommendation for or against.
“The current executive leadership is saying and doing the right things, and the management team that met with us appeared sincere, solution-focused and genuine in their efforts to right the past errors of their predecessors,” the SPEEA team said. “Still, the membership has made clear that the current offer falls short, and without significant improvements to the last offer, they are prepared to strike.”