Engineers at Boeing have voted to reject employer contract offers and to authorize a strike.
The online vote wrapped up Aug. 21 among 17,000 members of Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), also known as Local 2001 of the International Federation of Professional Technical Employees (IFPTE). Most work at Boeing facilities in the Puget Sound, but the units also include about 200 members at the Boeing components plant in Gresham, Oregon, and about 100 each at facilities in California and Utah.
SPEEA represents Boeing employees in two bargaining units, and both rejected the contract offer. Turnout was high, with 92% of represented employees voting. Members of a professional unit of 13,000 engineers and scientists voted down their proposed contract 7,238-4,027 (64%). And members of a technical unit of 4,000 analysts, designers, technicians, and other specialists rejected theirs 2,795-1094 (72%).
The two units then voted by 88% and 89% to authorize the union to call a strike if there’s no replacement agreement after current collective bargaining agreements expire Oct. 6. SPEEA members last struck at Boeing in 2000, staying out for 40 days in what was then the largest white-collar strike in U.S. history.
The current contract has been in place since 2013, and was extended in 2016 and 2020.
Initially SPEEA’s negotiation team had unanimously endorsed the offers. The tentative agreements included wage pool increases totaling 29.4% over four years. Unlike most union contracts, the SPEEA contract doesn’t specify fixed pay rates. Instead, raises are given according to management discretion under a merit system. The current median wage is $153,000 in the professional unit and $116,00 in the technical unit. The commitment to raise those wages 29.4% on average would have amounted to the biggest wage increases in 40 years. The tentative agreements also added three more days of paid leave a year, placed stricter limits on mandatory overtime, and committed the company to form a joint labor-management committee on the use of artificial intelligence.
But members weren’t sold. Speaking by phone with the Labor Press, members of the union negotiating team said there appeared to be deep mistrust of Boeing among members. One factor may have been uncertainty about how committed the company is to the Puget Sound. In the offer members rejected, Boeing stopped short of the commitment it made to the Machinists union in 2024 to build the next models in the Puget Sound.
After the negotiating team presented the agreements to councils of elected union stewards, the council for the professional unit couldn’t meet a 60% threshold for recommendation either way and the council for the technical unit voted to recommend rejection.
Union negotiators said they are ready to resume talks with Boeing once the results are in from a survey members to find out why they voted no.
