Engineers Vote 'Yes', Technical Workers Vote 'No'
With engineers voting to accept a new contract with The Boeing Company and technical workers voting to reject, the two bargaining units will be covered by significantly different agreements for at least the next two years.
Votes tallied by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local 2001, show engineers in the Professional unit approved their agreement by a vote of 3,837 (Accept) to 3,658. Casting ballots on a similar agreement, technical workers rejected their contract offer by a vote of 1,268 (Accept) to 1,654 (Reject). The result gives engineers a new contract that corrects issues with salary raise pools, provides Parental Leave and access to Washington’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program. The new agreement takes effect immediately and runs until Oct. 6, 2026.
Technical workers remain covered by their existing contract which remains in place until Oct. 6, 2022.
“SPEEA is a very democratic union and these results clearly bear that out,” said SPEEA President Joel Funfar. “The members had their say, and we respect their decisions. The engineers have a new contract, and the technical workers will now look to full negotiations in 2022.”
Negotiated by the union’s member-elected, seven-member Executive Board, the contracts cover 12,764 engineers in the Professional union and 4,705 workers in the Technical unit. While the majority of covered employees are in the Puget Sound region of Washington state, the contracts also cover SPEEA-represented employees in Oregon, Utah and California.
The union’s Executive Board recommended bargaining unit members accept the contract offers while the Northwest Council did not make a recommendation.
The contract offers grew from meetings between Boeing and SPEEA to resolve outstanding issues. The company presented its offers in early February. Ballots were mailed on Feb. 21 with members having until 5 p.m., Monday (March 9) to cast their vote. Union tellers counted the votes and certified the election results Monday evening at SPEEA headquarters.
"We are pleased that the SPEEA professional unit employees have ratified the agreement. The agreement is good for our engineers, our company and our customers," said Boeing Chief Engineer and Senior vice president of Engineering, Test & Technology Greg Hyslop in a statement released following the vote. "It was our hope that the four-year contract extension would benefit both the professional and the technical groups. Our professional unit employees will be covered by the ratified contract that expires in 2026 and the technical unit will remain covered by the existing contract through 2022. We will continue to work toward the company’s top priorities, and our ongoing commitment to engineering excellence remains unchanged.
(Source: News releases)
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