Herald staff
Boeing Co. technical workers in Texas have approved a new three-year contract, the first of several contracts the company and the Society of Professional Employees in Aerospace will negotiate this year.
The vote had been closely watched by members of the union in other parts of the country. Contracts for Puget Sound-area engineers and technical workers represented by SPEEA expire in December. Boeing and SPEEA also will negotiate a contract for engineers and technical workers in Wichita, Kan.
The 48-8 vote in Irving, Texas, came almost a month after the workers unanimously rejected the company’s first contract offer. It was the first unanimous no vote on a contract in the union’s history.
The first contract was so distasteful to workers that nine of them joined the union the day the package was voted on so that they could cast ballots against it.
But with the new contract, "We feel respected," said Regional Thompson, chairman of the SPEEA negotiating team in Irving. "The message these negotiations send is that the company can listen."
The financial package gives workers guarantees of 2 percent raises each year, with larger raises possible out of salary pools. That’s an average salary increase of $4,699 over three years, the union said.
The second offer also improved retiree benefits, 401(k) matching funds and short-term disability benefits.
And union officials said the approved contract did away with some benefit cuts they had earlier called "mean-spirited."
SPEEA executive director Charles Bofferding at union headquarters in Tukwila credited Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally for helping resolve the contract talks.
"Today is a new day," Bofferding said. "It is clear Alan Mulally wants Boeing’s team to come together and make the right things happen."
Workers at the Irving facility manufacture, modify and repair cockpit systems for Boeing jets.
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