By Shivansh Tiwary and Dan Catchpole
SEATTLE, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Boeing’s largest white-collar union said on Thursday its members approved a sweetened contract offer, ending fears that a strike would stall work on two long-delayed jetliners and slow the pace of aircraft deliveries.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, which represents about 17,000 Boeing workers, said both its bargaining units voted to approve the new four-year offer.
“We secured many victories that some thought were completely out of reach when this negotiation cycle started. All of these gains would not have been possible without your individual actions and our collective strength,” the SPEEA Negotiation Team said in a public statement to members.
Union members now “need to work with Boeing, and as needed, pressure Boeing management” to rebuild “trust with the membership that has eroded over the past decades” and “restore aerospace professionals and technicians to the center of Boeing’s universe,” the statement continued.
Boeing’s 737 MAX crisis, which began with two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, revealed widespread safety and quality problems at the company that critics attributed to leadership’s increasing focus on financial results in recent decades.
The proposal included a guaranteed 10% wage increase upon ratification, along with annual raises of 4% and the possibility of an additional 2% hike based on performance.
About 68% of the professional unit, which represents roughly 13,000 engineers and scientists, voted in favor of the deal, as did over 53% of the technical unit, representing about 4,000 designers, analysts and technicians. The two units bargain together but vote separately.
The ratification provides much-needed relief for Boeing, easing concerns over a potential strike as early as October 7, the day after current contracts expire.
A work stoppage could have delayed critical certification efforts for the 737 MAX 10 narrowbody and 777X widebody jets, while also disrupting the company’s plans to increase production and accelerate deliveries.
Members of both the professional and technical units had previously rejected Boeing’s initial offer, which linked guaranteed raises to inflation, capped at 3%, with up to an additional 2.5% based on performance.
SPEEA’s last strike against Boeing was in 2000, when engineers and technical workers walked out for 40 days in a dispute over pay and benefits.
The stoppage, which affected commercial-aircraft production and deliveries, was one of the largest white-collar strikes in US history.
(Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das, Shilpi Majumdar and David Gregorio)
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