SPEEA's Bargaining Unit Councils voted by the required 60% supermajorities on Tuesday to recommend that members ratify Boeing's revised four-year contract, setting up a vote that closes at noon on Oct. 1 and could end the strike threat hanging over the planemaker's production ramp.
"The Bargaining Unit Councils for SPEEA's Professional and Technical units are both recommending that their members accept the company's latest contract offer," the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace said in a press release. The council for the Professional Unit said the offers "meet most of the needs of the members" by winning gains on most priorities outlined at the start of negotiations.
The revised offer raises the Professional Unit's average base salary to $208,000 from $152,000 and the Technical Unit's to $163,000 from $119,000, according to Boeing — increases of $11,000 and $8,000 respectively over the package members rejected on Aug. 21. Union spokesperson Bryan Corliss said a 10% guaranteed wage increase takes effect in October, followed by 4% in March 2027, then 6% wage-pool increases in each of 2028, 2029 and 2030, with 4% guaranteed and 2% awarded at management's discretion. Including promotion and out-of-sequence funds, the offers provide 34% in pay increases over four years, not compounded.
The rejection in August was emphatic: 64.3% of the Professional Unit, representing nearly 13,000 engineers and scientists, voted no, as did 71.9% of the Technical Unit, about 4,000 analysts, designers and technicians. Turnout reached 92%, and 87.8% of professionals and 89.7% of technicians backed strike authorization. Boeing's August package had offered a 29.4% aggregate wage pool over four years, the largest since 1983, plus three additional paid leave days, lower mandatory-overtime limits and more virtual-work options.
Both contracts expire Oct. 6, and a strike cannot begin before then. Voting opens Thursday and runs through noon on Oct. 1, with results announced that afternoon. Roughly half the workers in the two units are based in Everett, Washington.
Boeing is negotiating against a production backdrop it has not yet restored. The company builds 737s at 47 a month and 787s at about nine a month, against the 52 and 12 rates in place on March 10, 2019, and has yet to hold a steady 737 rate at its Renton plant. A work stoppage by engineers and technicians would interrupt that climb.
"We took the feedback we heard from our employees and SPEEA's bargaining teams to deliver an offer with more value that includes guaranteed pay increases and a larger wage pool over the life of the contract," said Ben Nimmergut, Boeing vice president and functional chief engineer for Production Engineering, in a Sept. 17 statement.
The union's own technicians' council stopped short of a full endorsement, telling members to "examine both the advantages and limitations of the proposed agreement and determine whether it meets their expectations and priorities." That caveat matters after a rejection that defied a unanimous negotiating-team endorsement in August.
For Boeing holders, ratification removes a labor-cost and production-disruption overhang that has weighed on the delivery-recovery case, though the higher wage pool lifts the company's fixed cost base through 2030. The next checkpoint is the vote count on Oct. 1; a rejection would push the two sides back to the table with the Oct. 6 contract expiry four days away.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
