On second vote, SPEEA Technical Unit accepts Boeing’s offer
SEATTLE — Technical workers at
The Boeing Company approved a new
four-year contract March 18 — a month
after narrowly rejecting the exact same
offer. The vote — 4,244 to 654 — puts
an end to negotiations that have lasted
nearly a year. The previous contracts
expired Nov. 25, 2012.
Both Technical Unit and Profes-
sional Unit employees at Boeing are
members of the Society of Professional
Engineering Employees in Aerospace
(SPEEA) Local 2001, an affiliate of the
International Federation of Professional
and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). Most
work in the Puget Sound region of
Washington state, but the union also
represents 200 employees at the Gre-
sham plant in Oregon, as well as work-
ers at facilities in Utah and California.
They bargain contracts at the same time,
but the contracts are separate and inde-
pendent agreements.
Both units overwhelming rejected
Boeing’s first contract offer in October
2012. The company proposed a small
increase in wages, and called for an in-
crease in members’ contributions to
health insurance costs.
A key sticking point was Boeing’s
demand to switch new hires to a defined
contribution pension plan, i.e., a 401(k).
Union officials say the new retirement
plan slashes benefits by 41 percent.
Boeing’s own analysis shows a 33 per-
cent cut.
Induced by the overwhelming rejec-
tion of its first proposal in October, Boe-
ing agreed to extend the terms of the
previous contract by including 5 percent
annual salary increase pools, no in-
creases to employees for medical cov-
erage, and an increase to the retirement
benefit. But it refused to budge on the
pension change for workers hired after
March 1, 2013.
With Boeing announcing its last best
and final offer, the union took the pro-
posal to members for a vote in Febru-
ary, with the recommendation that they
reject them and support strike authori-
zation.
On Feb. 19, the Technical Unit —
made up of designers, technical writers,
planners and others — rejected the offer
2,868 to 3,203 and gave strike authori-
zation. However, the larger Professional
Unit, comprised of aerospace and elec-
trical engineers, approved their contract
6,483 to 5,514.
The Technical Unit and Boeing met
with a federal mediator on Feb. 27, but
Boeing refused to improve its offer.
Union negotiators expressed to
members that a second rejection likely
would result in a strike.
On March 18, the Technical Unit ac-
cepted the deal by a margin of 87 per-
cent to 13 percent.
Technical workers and engineers
hired after March 1, 2013 will now re-
ceive the company’s “enhanced
401(k)” and not the defined benefit
pension.
During bargaining, SPEEA filed
seven unfair labor practice (ULP)
charges against Boeing. Two com-
plaints — one involving alleged threats
made to new hires during orientation,
and another on the company’s code of
ethics — were dismissed by the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board (NLRB),
Region 19, and are on appeal.
Charges that Boeing refused to pro-
vide the union with requested informa-
tion during bargaining, and for threat-
ening layoffs if contracts weren’t rati-
fied, were sustained. The NLRB is now
in settlement talks with Boeing.
Three other ULPs involving the
company taking surveillance photos of
employees; seizing employee cameras
and photographs of union marches; and
banning employees from leafleting, are
still under investigation, said SPEEA
Executive Director Ray Goforth.
Strike threat becomes empty weapon for union members
(Editor’s Note: This article ap-
peared in the Michigan’s Building
Tradesman newspaper.)
U.S. union membership has been in
a steep decline over the past 40 years –
so have strikes and lockouts.
There were five — count ‘em, five
— strikes or lockouts of significance in
the U.S. in 2009. That was the lowest
number since the Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics (BLS) started keeping track in
1947. That number “spiked” to 11 in
2010 and 19 in both 2011 and 2012.
Compare that to 40 years ago, when
there were an average of 289 major
work stoppages a year. By the 1990s,
that had fallen to about 35 per year. A
major work stoppage, according to the
BLS, involves 1,000 or more workers.
“The strike has almost disappeared
from American life,” wrote Chris
Rhomberg, an associate professor of so-
ciology for Fordham University, for a
CNN article. Judicial philosophies and
politics have turned against unions. “We
have essentially gone back to a pre-New
Deal era of workplace governance.”
“Before the 1930s,” Rhomberg con-
tinued, “American unions confronted a
legal environment that historians have
described as ‘judicial repression.’ Dur-
ing that time, federal courts repeatedly
struck down workers’ rights to organ-
ize and act collectively, making unions
themselves all but illegal.
“In 1935, the National Labor Rela-
tions Act created a process for legally
recognizing union representation and
managing private-sector labor conflict.
The result was historic democratization
of the American workplace and econ-
omy. The strike was a crucial part of
this system: While the law was in-
tended to reduce industrial strife, it also
relied on the right to strike to protect
the integrity of the bargaining process.”
With weaker unions, that ability to
effectively strike — and raise workers’
living standards — has been dimin-
ished.
19 strikes in 2012
In 2012, there were 19 major strikes
and lockouts involving 1,000 or more
workers and lasting at least one shift,
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics re-
ported. The work stoppages idled
148,000 workers, higher than in 2011,
when 19 strikes idled 113,000 workers.
Over 40 percent (8 of 19) of the work
stoppages occurred in November and
December.
The largest work stoppage in 2012
in terms of number of workers and total
days idle was between the Chicago
Public Schools and the Chicago Teach-
ers Union, with 26,500 workers ac-
counting for 185,500 days idle. The
longest work stoppage was between
Lockheed Martin Corporation and the
International Association of Machinists
Local 776, with 3,600 workers ac-
counting for 172,800 days idle. The
Lockheed Martin Corporation work
stoppage lasted 48 workdays.
The major work stoppage between
the American Crystal Sugar Company
and the Bakery, Confectionary, To-
bacco Workers and Grain Millers re-
sulted in 308,100 days idle in 2012, and
nearly 445,000 cumulative days idle
since beginning on Aug. 1, 2011. The
number of workers involved in the
work stoppage fell below 1,000 work-
ers in December 2012 and will no
longer be counted in major work stop-
page estimates.
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APRIL 5, 2013