Boeing faces strike vote in Wichita

Published 9:00 pm Monday, May 24, 2004

WICHITA, Kan. – The union of technical and professional workers at Boeing Co.’s Wichita plant urged its members Monday to reject the company’s latest contract offer and authorize a strike.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace – which narrowly survived a decertification vote in February – received the company’s latest offer Monday morning, just three hours before its members began to vote on whether to accept or reject it.

Union members began voting after an afternoon meeting. However, polls will not close until 5 p.m. Friday to allow for any members who may be out of town an opportunity to cast a ballot. Results will be announced Friday evening.

“The offer the company put on the table makes me feel I am less than a Third World citizen. … It wouldn’t take that much to settle this contract if the company really wanted to settle it,” said Judy Hurd, a 24-year Boeing employee who voted against the contract and for a strike authorization.

Union officials hope a successful strike authorization vote will give them additional leverage to negotiate a better contract and avoid a strike.

At Monday’s meeting, union leaders said that continued negotiations – coupled with measures such as informational picketing when potential buyers of Boeing’s Wichita facility are in town – will pressure the company to improve its offer.

Boeing is exploring a sale of its commercial aircraft operations in Wichita and plants in Tulsa and McAlester, Okla.

In March, heeding the advice of their beleaguered union, Boeing’s technical and professional workers rejected a contract offer by a 3-to-1 margin. Union officials said the new contract proposal offers the same wage increases. “They did not budge,” said Bob Brewer, the union’s Midwest director.

Boeing spokesman Fred Solis said the company gave the union three contract options; the union declined to pick one. The company then picked one as its offer, which the union presented to its membership for a vote.

“All in all, we looked at the industry and looked at this market and looked at other people and other jobs. … We think this offer is very competitive, if not a market-leading offer in Wichita,” he said.

The three-year contract covers 3,400 workers at the company’s Wichita plant. It offers workers a 3.5 percent salary increase in the first year, followed by 3 percent annual increases in subsequent years.

Premiums for traditional health care plans would increase 15 percent in the first year and 18 percent in subsequent years. The company would still offer a no-cost plan with more limited benefits that does not require employee contributions.

Other provisions include a signing bonus of 2 percent of gross earnings if the contract is approved before June 1, and an incentive plan that could potentially pay out up to 4 percent in the contract’s second and third year.

The union’s first vote did not include a strike authorization. This vote’s inclusion of a strike authorization question does not mean a strike is imminent, Brewer said.

“We have a lot of strength behind us, but that is not our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to sit down with Boeing,” Brewer said. “A strike does not benefit either the company or employees.”

With contract talks stalled, negotiators last month brought in a mediator to help hammer out a deal.

Brewer said the company allocated a set amount for the contract package and has not moved outside that figure.

“They are more committed to internal politics than the employees of Wichita, and that is sad,” Brewer said.

Solis said, “We had an economic package that we needed to stay within. There was flexibility within the package, but we could not go outside the package.”

Meanwhile, Boeing employee Tina Nelson – who voted against the contract and to authorize the strike – said she is thinking about finding a second job in case workers end up on strike.

“We didn’t ask for that much – we just asked for cost of living,” she said. “They are wheeling and dealing with people’s retirement and livelihood.”