EVERETT — The day after a shake-up in the Boeing Co.’s leadership, the company’s engineers did a management shuffle of their own.
The union representing roughly 20,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers in the region voted to recall four executive board members on Wednesday. The recall comes three months after the four members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace board ousted the union’s executive director.
Infighting at SPEEA has sparked debate about how effective the group will be in negotiating its next three-year contract with Boeing next year. In August, two executive officers of SPEEA’s parent union highlighted this point in a letter sent to members.
“People won’t respect an organization whose members disrespect one another,” wrote two officers of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. “We need to come out of this affair as a unified organization.”
The four executive board members who faced recall included two Northwest region vice presidents, Jill Ritchey and Mike Dunn, and SPEEA secretary Dave Baine and treasurer Bob Wilkerson.
On Wednesday, more than 50 percent of those who voted favored recalling Ritchey, Dunn, Baine and Wilkerson. The recall referendum could be appealed to SPEEA’s judicial review committee.
In July, the four voted to terminate the contract of SPEEA’s executive director Charles Bofferding. The other three members of the board voted against doing so.
The recall vote likely has delayed SPEEA’s effort to pick a new executive director by Nov. 2. The board is responsible for hiring the director. With the possibility of changes in leadership, the board pushed back executive director interviews until after the recall.
SPEEA council members will appoint board members to fill out the remainder of the recalled board members’ terms.
Elected in 2006, Baine’s and Wilkerson’s terms expire in March 2008. Both Dunn and Ritchey were voted into their two-year terms in March this year.
The elections earlier this year changed the dynamics and expectations of board. Since July, the division between SPEEA leadership has widened.
In August, SPEEA President Cynthia Cole said that her column was censored from the union’s magazine. In her column, Cole noted that “two competing and incompatible philosophies and methods” existed on the board. The four board members rushed to get rid of Bofferding without allowing sufficient discussion and without a succession plan in place, Cole asserted.
Shortly after Cole’s remarks surfaced, an initial recall effort of Baine, Wilkerson, Ritchey and Dunn failed.
After the separation agreement between Bofferding and the union was finalized in September, the four wrote a rebuttal, offering their take on Bofferding’s dismissal. They noted continual disagreements with Bofferding didn’t seem to be improving. Cole and board member Tom McCarty left the July meeting before the board had a chance to form an interim management plan, the four said.
Just last week, SPEEA voted down a motion that would have prohibited the union’s ability to rehire any former executive directors, like Bofferding. A motion to censure Cole also failed.
About 4,000 people voted in the recall effort, roughly 20 percent of those eligible. However, that’s an increase over recent elections.
Reporter Michelle Dunlop: 425-339-3454 or mdunlop@heraldnet.com.
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