The union representing Boeing’s technical workers and engineers has hired a new director who will need to hit the ground running.
Six months after firing Charles Bofferding, the Society of Professional Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) has hired Ray Goforth as its new leader.
Goforth is a union member and was a strategic adviser in the Seattle local of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. SPEEA is an affiliate of that group.
“We are losing one of our best, but we are pleased to lose him to our sister local,” said the federation’s Joe McGee, executive director of Local 17.
He described Goforth as a tough negotiator.
“It’s a new day and a new start at SPEEA,” Cynthia Cole, the board president, said in a news release.
Bofferding was ousted last fall by four board members who later lost their seats in a recall election. Next month, there will be new elections for president, treasurer and secretary.
Bill Dugovich, the union’s communications director, said “things have leveled out” somewhat after the firing and subsequent turmoil.
But Goforth will certainly be focusing immediately on the issues raised during the past six months, he added.
Goforth takes over SPEEA as it is gearing up to negotiate a new contract with Boeing. The contract for the union’s largest unit, the one covering more than 20,267 Seattle-area workers, expires in December, after Boeing’s contract with the Machinists union. Before that, there are negotiations for units in Irving, Texas in July.
Goforth will lead the staff at the union’s Tukwila headquarters and will oversee offices in Everett and in Wichita, Kan.
Bofferding led the union beginning in 1991 and oversaw a successful 40-day strike in 2000. He negotiated a contract that won hefty pay raises for SPEEA members in December 2005. Critics said he ran the union autocratically, a claim he dismissed as unfounded.
Bofferding tried to get his job back. He made it to the top 10 of 42 candidates but was not among the three finalists the board interviewed Friday, SPEEA spokesman Bill Dugovich said.
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