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Boeing Engineers Begin Talks; Machinists Prepare to Vote on New Pact |
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As striking members of the Machinists (IAM) prepare to vote on a tentative contract with Boeing Co., the company’s engineers and technical workers have begun new contract talks.
Negotiations between the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/IFPTE Local 2001 (SPEEA) and Boeing began Oct. 29, after eight months of disappointing preliminary talks. The first meaningful discussion only recently took place, according to the union.
Says SPEEA Executive Director Ray Goforth:
Early indications are that these will be very difficult negotiations. Engineers and technical workers are the life’s blood of Boeing, but the current regime at corporate headquarters treats them as mere vendors selling a service. This disrespect has to end.
The SPEEA-Boeing talks involve two contracts, one for engineers and a second for technical workers. The contracts, which expire Dec. 1, cover workers in the Puget Sound region, Oregon, Utah and California. Negotiations for engineers at Boeing’s Wichita facility start Nov. 13. The Wichita contract expires Dec. 5. Together, the three contracts cover 20,300 employees.
SPEEA members are determined to stop Boeing’s proposals to eliminate defined-benefit pensions for new employees, shift health care costs onto employees and accelerate the outsourcing of engineering and design work to suppliers, contractors and overseas companies.
Many of the issues in the SPEEA negotiations were on the table in the recent talks between Boeing and IAM, which represents 27,000 striking airplane production employees. Machinists will vote Nov. 1 on a tentative four-year agreement. If ratified, the pact would increase wages, provide lump-sum payments, strengthen job security and hold the line on health care costs.
In a statement, the IAM negotiators, who are recommending the agreement, said it would provide job security for covered employees and would “limit the amount of work outside vendors can perform in the workplace.”
The key issues in the strike, which began Sept. 6, are job security and the company’s use of outside vendors.
According to the union, the contract calls for:
- Providing a 15 percent pay raise over four years and “significant lump sum payments” in the first three years.
- Limiting outside vendors to delivering products to designated areas only, where bargaining unit members would perform a number of tasks concerning parts, materials, tools and other items.
- Expanding the union’s right to review subcontracting and allowing the union to compete for work moved from one Boeing facility to another.
- Avoiding shifting costs of health care to the workers.
- Increasing monthly benefits under the company’s defined-benefit plan.
You can read IAM’s summary of the tentative contract here.
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