Boeing Techs Overwhelmingly Approve New Contract

Technical Unit members have approved a new four-year contract with The Boeing Company, reversing a previous vote and joining Boeing engineers who approved the same contact last month.

Votes tallied Monday, March 18 at Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) headquarters, show technical workers approved the contract offer by a vote of 4,244 to accept and 654 to reject.

Union members were voting on a contract offer that was identical to the offer Technical workers narrowly rejected and the larger Professional Unit of engineers narrowly accepted on Feb. 19. Union negotiators told members a second rejection would likely result in a strike as Boeing was refusing to move on all issues.

The new contract extends the terms of the previous contract, including 5% annual salary-increase pools, no cost increases to employees for medical coverage and an increase to the retirement benefit. By the end of the new agreement, SPEEA-represented technical workers, and also the engineers, will have received eight straight years of 5 percent salary-increase pools. 

The major area of contention during negotiations was the defined benefit retirement (pension) plan. While overwhelming member support and workplace action helped union negotiators continually get Boeing to improve most elements of the contract offer, the company steadfastly refused to move away from eliminating the pension for new technical workers hired after March 1, 2013. Like most new employees at Boeing, technical workers and engineers will now receive the company’s “enhanced 401(k)” and not the defined benefit pension.

SPEEA and Boeing started negotiations in April, 2012. Technical workers have been without a contract since Nov. 25. While engineers and technical workers bargain at the same time, the contracts are separate and independent agreements.

Previous Coverage:

• Boeing Technical Workers' Contract Ballots Being Counted Monday Night, March 18, 2013
• Boeing Strike? Union Tells Technical Workers it's Possible as Ballots Go Out, March 8, 2013
• SPEEA to Resubmit Offer to Technical Workers; Boeing Won't Budge, March 1, 2013
• , Feb. 19, 2013
• , Jan. 17, 2003
• , Jan. 16, 2013
• FAA Temporarily Grounds All Boeing 787 Dreamliner Jets, Jan. 16, 2013
• , Sept. 27, 2012

(Ed. Note: The information in this article was provided by a SPEEA news release.)