Washington, Oregon Workers Approve Their Deal With Aerospace
Manufacturer
Aero-News has learned
engineers at The Boeing Company's Wichita Integrated Defense
Systems are planning to return to the negotiation table, after
voting to reject the company's offer for a new employment
contract.
According to the union -- which represents 802 employees at
Boeing's plant in Wichita, KS -- the tally showed 71 percent
of the voting members cast ballots to reject the offer. The final
count was 205 members voting to reject and 86 voting to accept.
More than 84 percent of the members cast ballots on the contract
offer delivered by Boeing on Nov. 18 to negotiators for the Society
of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE
Local 2001.
SPEEA and Boeing opened main table talks Nov. 8 to negotiate the
contract. The existing contract expired Monday.
"A clear majority of our members are not satisfied with this
contract offer," said Bob Brewer, SPEEA Midwest director. "However,
there are some good things in this initial offer. We believe we're
just around the corner from an agreement that works for
everyone."
Members voted down a contract offer that would have driven the
wages of the engineers further below market averages and extended
the length of their contract to separate them from
union-represented engineers in the Puget Sound bargaining
units.
"Our team is very disappointed in the approach management took,"
said Brewer. "For the first time in history, Wichita management
tried to give us lower wage pools than are provided to Puget Sound
engineers."
SPEEA's Puget Sound bargaining units ratified contracts on Dec.
1 that provide first year increases from a salary pool of 7
percent. The current offer to Wichita engineers would have created
a 5 percent salary adjustment pool.
As was reported last month in
Aero-News, SPEEA members in Washington and Oregon who
work for Boeing's Commercial Airliner division were also presented
with a new contract. That union approved their new contract last
week, with nearly 90 percent of its membership voting yes on the
three-year deal.
"What a difference leadership makes," said Charles Bofferding,
SPEEA executive director. "With Boeing Integrated Defense Systems
(IDS) leading, we got old school negotiation tactics, a bad
contract and our team issued a unanimous recommendation to reject
the offer. Boeing (IDS) is better than this and we will help make
it so."
Overall, the professional union represents 22,200 engineers,
technical and professional employees in Washington, Kansas, Oregon,
Utah and California. SPEEA, a Local of the International Federation
of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), also represents
workers at BAE Systems, Inc., in Irving, TX, and Triumph Composite
Systems, Inc., in Spokane, WA