Ratification Vote Dates Not Yet Set
Negotiators for technical and professional workers at Spirit
AeroSystems are unanimously recommending union members approve the
tentative agreement reached Tuesday (Nov. 29) for a new contract.
The tentative agreement covers 2,300 employees in the Wichita
Technical and Professional Unit (WTPU) of the Society of
Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE
Local 2001. Employees have been working without a contract since
July 28.
If ratified by a vote of union members, the negotiated agreement
will provide a signing bonus of $2,000, annual market based raises
starting in 2012, participation in the Spirit Incentive Plan and
increased restrictions on Spirit’s use of contract labor.
Bargaining unit council representatives also voted unanimously to
recommend approval of the offer after learning details at a special
meeting Tuesday.
Voting will take place at an all-member meeting in the coming
weeks. Union negotiators are planning lunchtime meetings for
employees to hear details and ask questions about the tentative
agreement. “The increase in membership we experienced in the
past two months made a remarkable difference,” said Bill
Hartig, chair of the WTPU Negotiation Team. “The company
listened to their employees and made significant improvements to
their previous offer.”
The contract would use the Salary Information Retrieval System
(SIRS) by Mercer, LLC, an established salary benchmark, to
determine salary pools for annual raises. Annual funds starting in
2012 will be the SIRS market increase of which .5% will be reserved
for promotions and out-of-sequence raises. Employees will
participate in the Spirit Incentive Plan which is based on company
performance targets. The 2012 payout would be a minimum of 3% to a
maximum of 6%. The following two years, the target is 4% with a
maximum of 8%. Years 2015 to 2020 the target is 6% with a maximum
of 12%. While the 9.5-year duration is longer than union
negotiators wanted, they said tying increases to SIRS data and the
escalating Incentive Plan targets assures salaries will remain
competitive.
“Making sure a long-term contract had the right
protections in place was key to these negotiations,” said Bob
Brewer, SPEEA Midwest director. “It has been a long journey
and a tremendous amount of work and effort has been put in to get
to the final result.”
Union members rejected Spirit’s initial offer by a margin
of 96.5% in voting on July 28. Since that vote, union membership
has swelled from 30% to 52% of the 2,300 employees included in the
bargaining unit.
A copy of the negotiated agreement, showing changes in red, is
posted on the SPEEA website.
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