Key Takeaways:
Boeing's engineering union rejected a four-year contract offer and authorized a strike, with 92% of eligible members voting on Aug. 21.
"We gave a strong contract offer to position our employees among the market leaders in pay and benefits in the Pacific Northwest," Ben Nimmergut, vice president and functional chief engineer for production engineering at Boeing, said.
Members of SPEEA's Professional Unit, representing nearly 13,000 engineers and scientists, rejected the contract with a 64.3% no vote, 7,238 to 4,027. The Technical Unit, representing more than 4,000 analysts, designers and technicians, voted no by 71.9%, 2,795 to 1,094. Strike authorization passed with 87.8% support in the Professional Unit and 89.7% in the Technical Unit.
A strike could disrupt Boeing's commercial production in its Puget Sound factories and delay certification of the 737 MAX 10 and 777X programs. SPEEA represents 17,000 employees at Boeing facilities in Washington and nearby states. The union last struck in 2000, remaining off the job for 40 days.
The contract offer included aggregate wage pool increases of 29.4% over four years, which SPEEA's negotiating team described as the largest wage-pool increase for members since 1983. Boeing also proposed three extra days of paid leave annually, lower limits on mandatory overtime and more opportunities for virtual work. The deal would have raised the average base salary for professional unit members by $45,000, from $152,000 to $197,000, and by $35,000 for technical unit members, from $119,000 to $154,000, according to Boeing.
SPEEA's negotiating team unanimously endorsed the contract, but union leaders said members "deeply mistrust Boeing management." The Technical Unit's Bargaining Unit Council voted to recommend rejection, while the Professional Unit's council could not reach the required 60% supermajority for a recommendation either way.
"It's important to acknowledge how we got here; this mistrust was built brick-by-brick over the past several contracts," SPEEA's negotiating team said. "SPEEA-represented jobs eroded, quality and safety took a backseat to schedule, engineering and technical decisions were overruled or worse, ignored, and salaries failed to keep pace with both the market and inflation."
The union plans to survey members about what it would take to approve a contract, then seek to resume bargaining with Boeing. No strike can begin before the current contracts expire Oct. 6.
Boeing said it is moving forward with a contingency plan to maintain aircraft deliveries and customer commitments if its professional workforce walks off the job. The company declined to share details of the plan.
The vote follows Boeing's blue-collar union, the International Association of Machinists, securing a 38% general wage increase after a 53-day strike in 2024. SPEEA members have pointed to that deal as a benchmark, with some noting that Machinists now earn comparable or higher pay than their white-collar peers.
A SPEEA strike would mark the first by Boeing's white-collar workers since 2000, when members remained off the job for 40 days. The union has not struck since, though negotiations in 2012 were contentious and Boeing subsequently moved engineering work to other parts of the country.
The strike authorization gives SPEEA's negotiating team the ability to call a work stoppage if talks fail. The union said it is "prepared and willing to work with the company toward meaningful movement" before the Oct. 6 deadline.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
