Glitches delay voting on contract offer to Boeing engineers

  • By Dan Catchpole Herald Writer
  • Monday, February 1, 2016 3:17pm
  • Business

EVERETT — Printing and mailing errors have delayed voting on a contract offer to white-collar union members at the Boeing Co.

Corrected ballots were being mailed to members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) on Feb. 2, according to the union’s website.

Ballots must be returned by 5 p.m. on Feb. 17, eight days later than the original deadline. Votes will be tallied that night, and results will be posted on the union’s website.

“The need to send new ballots to members is an unfortunate necessity,” the union said in a statement on its website. “The printing house is giving the highest priority to our contract vote.”

The first ballots were mailed Jan. 27 to members of the union’s two biggest bargaining units — engineers and technical workers. However, some members received the wrong ballot, and there was an error on the return envelopes, SPEEA spokesman Bill Dugovich said. “The decision was made to just reprint the ballots.”

The original mailings will not be counted if returned and should be thrown out, the union said.

The new ballots look “distinctly different from the first mailing,” SPEEA said in the statement.

The roughly 14,000 SPEEA engineers will receive envelopes marked with “Prof,” for professional, and a green bar. The union’s 6,500 technical workers will receive envelopes marked with “Tech” and an orange bar.

SPEEA members are considering a proposed six-year contract that came out of secret negotiations between the union and Boeing.

The tentative agreement, which would expire in late 2022, promises above-market wages and would soften the landing for union members who see their jobs moved out of state. It also would freeze pension benefits in 2019 and slightly increases members’ share of health care costs. Other retirement benefits are improved to offset the pension changes.

If union members approve the offers, Boeing will have long-term agreements with its two largest unions — SPEEA and the International Associated of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ (IAM) District Lodge 751, whose contract expires in 2024.

Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.

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