Members of one of Boeing’s biggest unions have rejected a contract offer from the company and have authorized a strike if further talks fail.
These are members of Boeing’s SPEEA union, which represents 13,000 engineers and 4,000 technical workers.
The contract offer would have boosted the average pay for those who design Boeing planes by nearly 30 percent over four years. They would have received three extra days of paid leave, lower limits on mandatory overtime, and more opportunities for virtual work.
Dan Nowlin, a Boeing equipment and tool specialist, serves on the negotiating team that originally endorsed the contract. ”We - with the company - we worked very hard to come to an agreement. We believed that it was an agreement that we could take honestly before the members and get a result,” Nowlin said.
That result turned out to be a no vote. At the same time, members voted to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike, if necessary.
The SPEEA union says members simply don’t trust Boeing management, claiming jobs are being sent out of state, decisions by engineering and technical staff are getting overruled by management, quality is taking a backseat to schedules, and that salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation and the aerospace market.
Katheryn Durke, a materials and process engineer who also serves on the bargaining team, says Boeing’s decisions are leading to staff turnover.
“In order to defy gravity and to deliver to our customers, we really need to have that top talent in place year over year. You can’t build an airplane in a year. You can certainly deliver an airplane any year. You need people who are willing to be there to learn the very specialized skills that we have,” Durke said.
Ben Nimmergut, Boeing vice president and functional chief engineer for Production Engineering, released a statement in response to the union vote. “We gave a strong contract offer to position our employees among the market leaders in pay and benefits in the Pacific Northwest. We’re disappointed our engineers and technical workforce voted no on our offer.”
Boeing says it has a contingency plan should SPEEA workers walk out. The earliest that could happen is October 7th, after the current contract expires.
The SPEEA negotiating team remains hopeful. “We are willing and ready to come back to the table at any time to resolve this,” Nowlin said.
As of Saturday evening, Boeing had not scheduled further talks with SPEEA.
The last Boeing strike in western Washington was in 2024. Machinist union members walked out for 53 days, shutting down production.
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