Boeing on hook for millions in Washington employees’ pay dispute

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Tallying up travel cash for one of the largest payouts of back pay ever. That’s the word coming from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. The agency revealed on Thursday that Boeing will pay out a record sum of cash to settle a pay dispute that was investigated by the agency.

Boeing employees travel around the country and around the world, and many of those workers are based in Washington state, where the bulk of Boeing’s manufacturing base is located. The state of Washington says one group of employees was not being paid properly concerning travel, and they’ve received millions in back pay.

The state L&I says Boeing will pay about $11.5 million in unpaid wages to nearly 500 workers after the agency investigated pay complaints related to the company. The agency said Boeing signed an agreement to dole out the cash.

L&I says it received complaints in November from workers who were performing aircraft maintenance overseas for Boeing that sparked a larger investigation into travel pay and Washington state’s policies on travel pay as it related to Boeing. State law says companies must pay workers for time spent on mandatory travel and on job related activities while on a required trip.

The employers also owe overtime and sick leave accrual based on those hours. The key thing under state law is all travel time related to work is considered work time. L&I found Boeing had not paid or accounted for overtime and paid sick leave for some times during mandated work trips.

Bryan Templeton, the Employment Standards Program Manager for WA L&I, said their investigation revealed that Boeing wasn’t following certain state regulations when it came to travel pay.

“While they (Boeing employees) are on that flight flying to the location that they have to go work at, that’s work time because they’re not free to leave… another big issue that was present in this case was when the workers -- when the mechanics were directed to report to the hotel lobby in the country they were working on at 6 a.m., and they would stay in that lobby and wait for transportation …however long that takes, again, they’re not free to leave. That was a period of time they were not being paid for they should have been,” said Templeton.

L&I said Boeing agreed to pay workers and prevent future issues.

“As Washington has clarified the state’s travel pay policies in the past several years, we also aligned our pay practices to reflect those requirements. We also went a step further and provided back pay for eligible employees in 2021, and more recently provided back pay earlier this year for another group of employees that did not originally record all of their travel time. We are pleased the state has agreed to close an audit into Boeing pay practices,” a Boeing spokesperson said in a statement sent to us Friday morning.

The payout covers pay from October 2019 to August 2023 and represents the largest amount of back pay returned to workers in the history of Washington.

Templeton admitted that it’s not clear if other companies are also not following state regulations on travel pay, but he hoped if people suspect that travel pay is not being paid, that employees would seek out help from L&I.

“The simplest way to remember the rule is if you’re not free to leave, you should be paid,” said Templeton.

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