Boeing workers stand together, win together

SEATTLE - After 40 days and nights on the picket lines in the biggest white-collar strike ever, victorious Boeing Co. engineers, technicians and other professional workers jubilantly marched back to work March 20. The day before, 71.5 percent of the union's membership ratified a new three-year contract with the aircraft manufacturer.

"Whatever we accomplished at the bargaining table was because of this kind of spirit, and this kind of solidarity and a very special union, SPEEA/IFPTE (Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/Professional and Technical Engineers) Local 2001, AFL-CIO," national AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told a cheering rally of thousands before marching with the returning workers to Boeing's Renton, Wash., plant gates.

Some 20,000 workers in Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, Florida and Kansas walked off the job Feb. 9 over the company's lack of respect for the workers and its demands for contract concessions.

SPEEA represents 165 workers at Boeing's Gresham plant on Northeast Sandy Boulevard.

"More than anything else, this extraordinary strike - the biggest strike of private-sector professionals in history - has been about respect. We wanted respect for our contributions and a better future for our families and our company," said SPEEA Executive Director Charles Bofferding.

Many observers predicted the white-collar strike would fail, but SPEEA's 20,000 members proved them wrong. Boeing felt the strikers' pressure on the production line, admitting it had to delay 15 of the 42 aircraft deliveries scheduled for February and had delivered only three planes in March.

"Thanks to your willingness to put your jobs on the line, no corporation, however big, will ever challenge a union of white-collar workers without thinking twice," said Trumka.

Along with winning wage increases and a signing bonus, workers beat back company demands for health benefit concessions and reached a new partnership agreement with Boeing based on mutual respect, mutual commitment and mutual benefit.

"The strikers proved that age-old lesson - when people join together, when they stick together, they win," said national AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Last October, SPEEA merged with IFPTE and became affiliated with the AFL-CIO. During the 40-day strike, the federation and affiliated unions provided financial assistance and other resources to the strikers. Machinists who work at Boeing and the Machinists locals and national leaders strongly supported their co-workers.

"The success of Boeing engineers and technicians is a lesson for white-collar workers - indeed all workers - everywhere," Sweeney said. "They can see for themselves that the power of union movement solidarity can move mountains."