Contract vote looms for Boeing workers after improved offer

By Dan Catchpole

SEATTLE, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Boeing's largest white-collar union will decide on Thursday whether its members accept a sweetened contract offer or move closer to a strike that would stall work on two long-delayed jetliners and slow jet deliveries.

A second rejection by the roughly 17,000 members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace would clear the way for a walkout as soon as Oct. 7, the day after their current contracts expire. Members already authorized a strike in August. 

A strike would abruptly halt Boeing's certification campaigns for the 737 MAX 10 and 777-9 and disrupt its push to boost jetliner deliveries. Both are critical to the crisis-battered planemaker's financial recovery.

"We're working very hard to try to avoid any kind of work stoppage," Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told a financial conference in mid-September, adding that a strike would financially hurt the company.

Members of SPEEA's two units overwhelmingly rejected Boeing's first offer in August. About 64% of the Professional Unit, representing roughly 13,000 engineers and scientists, voted no, as did about 72% of the Technical Unit, which has about 4,000 designers, analysts and technicians. Most members work in Washington, with smaller groups in Oregon, California and Utah. The two units bargain together but vote separately.

The revised offer, presented on Sept. 11, includes a 10% guaranteed raise on ratification and lifts annual guaranteed raises to a flat 4%, plus 2% performance increases possible. The previous offer tied guaranteed raises to inflation up to 3%, plus up to 2.5% more tied to performance. Over the four-year contract, the average SPEEA member would get a 32% raise, compared with 26.5% under the first offer, according to the union.

SPEEA negotiators pushed for bigger raises, saying members' pay had not kept up with the market and inflation. 

 SOME SIGNS OF SUPPORT GROWING

Unlike the first offer, Union councils for both units recommended that members accept the latest one. In August, the Technical Unit council urged a no vote, and the Professional Unit council fell short of the 60% supermajority needed to make any recommendation.

Several union members who voted no on the first offer told Reuters they have switched to supporting the second one.

"It is a good reset on wages and will allow us to push for non-economic priorities in 2030," such as safeguards against moving work to non-union regions, said a Boeing engineer who asked not to be named.

But opposition remains. Another SPEEA member in the Seattle area, where most members work, said the raises "might not be enough for what is coming" if inflation climbs and fuel prices stay high. He voted no. 

"At the end of the day, the company is going to try to get as much as it can for as little as it can," he said. 

(Reporting by Dan Catchpole in SeattleEditing by Nick Zieminski)