Bird In The Hand?

At Mid-Western Aircraft Systems in Wichita, workers represented by Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace will vote Wednesday to accept or reject the company's offers. Results will be announced on July 11th.

This comes shortly after the Machinists overwhelmingly accepted their new offer. They weren't necessarily happy about it, but many expressing a desire to get back to work.

A four-year contract for about 600 engineers would lock in a 13.5 percent wage increase over three years. A six year contract for 1,800 technical and professional workers guarantees a 17.5 percent wage increase over five years. The offers will take away some benefits, and increase medical premiums.

SPEEA received the offers from Onex Corporation negotiators on Tuesday and secured minor changes to the offer Tuesday evening. Onex has been negotiating with unions at the plant for several months. The company finalized purchase and took over operations of the Wichita Commercial Division of The Boeing Company earlier this month.

"It's up to the members to decide," said Bob Brewer, SPEEA Midwest director. "There are some good things in these contracts, but the teams cannot recommend contracts that have benefit takeaways."

At a special meeting Thursday, the technical and professional unit's council recommended to accept the offer. The engineer unit's council issued no recommendation.

The contract offers avoids wage cuts suffered by some employees. The union also secured a retiree medical plan that provides coverage at age 62 and a bereavement benefit for represented employees.

A number of the improvements are being extended by Mid-Western to other employees.

"Having a union helped all employee groups," said Charles Bofferding, SPEEA executive director. "Without the union non-represented employees would not receive many of these improvements."

FMI: www.midwesternaircraft.com, www.speea.org