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

FMI: www.speea.org, www.boeing.com/negotiations